| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from St. Ives by Robert Louis Stevenson: yellow with our costumes; and the dress of the soldiers who guarded
us being of course the essential British red rag, we made up
together the elements of a lively picture of hell. I have again
and again looked round upon my fellow-prisoners, and felt my anger
rise, and choked upon tears, to behold them thus parodied. The
more part, as I have said, were peasants, somewhat bettered perhaps
by the drill-sergeant, but for all that ungainly, loutish fellows,
with no more than a mere barrack-room smartness of address: indeed,
you could have seen our army nowhere more discreditably represented
than in this Castle of Edinburgh. And I used to see myself in
fancy, and blush. It seemed that my more elegant carriage would
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: to their own quarters till the morrow, when his Holiness was to
make his entry; the which was made with great sumptuousness and
magnificence, he being seated in a chair carried on the shoulders
of two men and wearing his pontifical robes, but not the tiara.
Pacing before him was a white hackney, bearing the sacrament of
the altar,--the said hackney being led by reins of white silk held
by two footmen finely equipped. Next came all the cardinals in
their robes, on pontifical mules, and Madame la Duchesse d'Urbino
in great magnificence, accompanied by a vast number of ladies and
gentlemen, both French and Italian.
"The Holy Father having arrived in the midst of this company at
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: At last she said--
"Now I's got it; now I 'member. It was dat ole nigger preacher dat
tole it, de time he come over here fum Illinois en preached in
de nigger church. He said dey ain't nobody kin save his own self--
can't do it by faith, can't do it by works, can't do it no way at all.
Free grace is de _on'y_ way, en dat don't come fum nobody but jis' de Lord;
en _he_ kin give it to anybody He please, saint or sinner--_he_ don't kyer.
He do jis' as He's a mineter. He s'lect out anybody dat suit Him,
en put another one in his place, and make de fust one happy forever
en leave t' other one to burn wid Satan. De preacher said it was jist
like dey done in Englan' one time, long time ago. De queen she lef'
|
