| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: of mechanical toil to obtain greater mastery of thought. Spinosa
ground glasses for spectacles; Bayle counted the tiles on the roof;
Montesquieu gardened. The body being thus subdued, the soul could
spread its wings in all security.
Madame Mignon, reading her daughter's soul, was therefore right.
Modeste loved; she loved with that rare platonic love, so little
understood, the first illusion of a young girl, the most delicate of
all sentiments, a very dainty of the heart. She drank deep draughts
from the chalice of the unknown, the vague, the visionary. She admired
the blue plumage of the bird that sings afar in the paradise of young
girls, which no hand can touch, no gun can cover, as it flits across
Modeste Mignon |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott: had been an eye-witness of the incidents recorded in it.
"I tell the tale as it was told to me."
Stories enow of much the same cast will present themselves to the
recollection of such of my readers as have ever dabbled in a
species of lore to which I certainly gave more hours, at one
period of my life, than I should gain any credit by confessing.
AUGUST 1831.
*
AUNT MARGARET'S MIRROR.
"There are times
When Fancy plays her gambols, in despite
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad: whisper, "He's talking of you," seemed to me sheer
waste of breath. The Chief Steward must have
stuck to his point, whatever it was, because Hamil-
ton was heard again more supercilious if possible,
and also very emphatic:
"Rubbish, my good man! One doesn't COMPETE with
a rank outsider like that. There's plenty of time."
Then there were pushing of chairs, footsteps in
the next room, and plaintive expostulations from
the Steward, who was pursuing Hamilton, even out
of doors through the main entrance.
The Shadow Line |
