| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Georgics by Virgil: Still quicken o'er the course, and, idly now
Grasping the reins, the driver by his team
Is onward borne, nor heeds the car his curb.
GEORGIC II
Thus far the tilth of fields and stars of heaven;
Now will I sing thee, Bacchus, and, with thee,
The forest's young plantations and the fruit
Of slow-maturing olive. Hither haste,
O Father of the wine-press; all things here
Teem with the bounties of thy hand; for thee
With viny autumn laden blooms the field,
Georgics |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: the right, the duty, and the example of self-government.
Such was the political and social state of the Ancien Regime, not
only in France, but if we are to trust (as we must trust) M. de
Tocqueville, in almost every nation in Europe, except Britain.
And as for its moral state. We must look for that--if we have need,
which happily all have not--in its lighter literature.
I shall not trouble you with criticisms on French memoirs--of which
those of Madame de Sevigne are on the whole, the most painful (as
witness her comments on the Marquise de Brinvilliers's execution),
because written by a woman better and more human than ordinary. Nor
with "Menagiana," or other 'ana's--as vain and artificial as they
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Poor and Proud by Oliver Optic: Katy read the whole psalm, and followed it with others, which
produced a healing influence upon her mother's mind, and she
seemed to forget that the purse was empty, and that they had
placed themselves under obligations to a servant.
The sufferer rested much better than usual that night, and Katy
was permitted to sleep the greater part of the time--a boon which
her exhausted frame very much needed. About ten o'clock in the
forenoon, Michael paid her a visit, to inform her that Mrs.
Gordon had just arrived: and that, when he mentioned her case,
she had sent him down to request her immediate attendance and
that his mistress would have come herself, only she was so much
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