| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: the key of conversation, not with any thought of how men talk in
parlours, but with a single eye to the degree of passion he may be
called on to express; and allow neither himself in the narrative
nor any character in the course of the dialogue, to utter one
sentence that is not part and parcel of the business of the story
or the discussion of the problem involved. Let him not regret if
this shortens his book; it will be better so; for to add irrelevant
matter is not to lengthen but to bury. Let him not mind if he miss
a thousand qualities, so that he keeps unflaggingly in pursuit of
the one he has chosen. Let him not care particularly if he miss
the tone of conversation, the pungent material detail of the day's
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Bab:A Sub-Deb, Mary Roberts Rinehart by Mary Roberts Rinehart: Mother was waiting in the hall for me, but she held me off with
both hands.
"Not until you have bathed and changed your clothing, Barbara," she
said. "I have never had it."
She meant the whooping cough. The school will recall the epademic
which ravaged us last June, and changed us from a peaceful
institution to what sounded like a dog show.
Well, I got the same old room, not much fixed up, but they had put
up diferent curtains anyhow, thank goodness. I had been hinting all
spring for new Furnature, but my Familey does not take a hint
unless it is cloroformed first, and I found the same old stuff there.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: of sickness; they do not exist in my prospect; I would as soon drag
them under the eyes of my readers as I would mention a pimple I
might chance to have (saving your presence) on my posteriors. What
does it prove? what does it change? it has not hurt, it has not
changed me in any essential part; and I should think myself a
trifler and in bad taste if I introduced the world to these
unimportant privacies.
But, again, there is this mountain-range between us - THAT YOU DO
NOT BELIEVE ME. It is not flattering, but the fault is probably in
my literary art.
Letter: TO W. H. LOW
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