| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: of having been punished is one of the first points I must attain
to, for the sake of my own perfection, and because I am so
imperfect.
Then I must learn how to be happy. Once I knew it, or thought I
knew it, by instinct. It was always springtime once in my heart.
My temperament was akin to joy. I filled my life to the very brim
with pleasure, as one might fill a cup to the very brim with wine.
Now I am approaching life from a completely new standpoint, and
even to conceive happiness is often extremely difficult for me. I
remember during my first term at Oxford reading in Pater's
RENAISSANCE - that book which has had such strange influence over
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson: 'Understand me, Madame von Rosen,' returned the Prince, flushing a
little darker, 'there can be here no talk of gratitude, none of
pride. You are here, by what circumstance I know not, but doubtless
led by your kindness, mixed up in what regards my family alone. You
have no knowledge what my wife, your sovereign, may have suffered;
it is not for you - no, nor for me - to judge. I own myself in
fault; and were it otherwise, a man were a very empty boaster who
should talk of love and start before a small humiliation. It is in
all the copybooks that one should die to please his lady-love; and
shall a man not go to prison?'
'Love? And what has love to do with being sent to gaol?' exclaimed
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: consist in her being ready to go to war, but in allowing herself
to be allied to, and depend upon, the superstitious rabble of
Boxers, and to believe that her "hundreds of millions" of
undisciplined "inhabitants" could withstand the thousands or tens
of thousands of well-drilled, well-led, intelligent soldiers from
the West.
That she was ready to go to war rather than weakly yield to the
demands for territory from the European powers is further
evidenced by the following edict issued by the Tsungli Yamen to
the viceroys and governors:
"This yamen has received the special commands of her Imperial
|
