| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: Bathe the bare deck and blind the unshielded eyes;
The allotted hours aloft shall wheel in vain
And in the unpregnant ocean plunge again.
Assault of squalls that mock the watchful guard,
And pluck the bursting canvas from the yard,
And senseless clamour of the calm, at night
Must mar your slumbers. By the plunging light,
In beetle-haunted, most unwomanly bower
Of the wild-swerving cabin, hour by hour . . .
Schooner 'Equator.'
XXXIV - TO MY OLD FAMILIARS
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Lesson of the Master by Henry James: him at luncheon, she had given him for half an hour the impression
of her beautiful face. Something else had come with it - a sense
of generosity, of an enthusiasm which, unlike many enthusiasms, was
not all manner. That was not spoiled for him by his seeing that
the repast had placed her again in familiar contact with Henry St.
George. Sitting next her this celebrity was also opposite our
young man, who had been able to note that he multiplied the
attentions lately brought by his wife to the General's notice.
Paul Overt had gathered as well that this lady was not in the least
discomposed by these fond excesses and that she gave every sign of
an unclouded spirit. She had Lord Masham on one side of her and on
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: Baudraye.
"Madame de la Baudraye is a fruit that must be left to ripen." This
was the opinion of Monsieur Gravier, who was waiting.
As to the lawyer, he wrote letters four pages long, to which Dinah
replied in soothing speech as she walked, leaning on his arm, round
and round the lawn after dinner.
Madame de la Baudraye, thus guarded by three passions, and always
under the eye of her pious mother, escaped the malignity of slander.
It was so evident to all Sancerre that no two of these three men would
ever leave the third alone with Madame de la Baudraye, that their
jealousy was a comedy to the lookers-on.
The Muse of the Department |
