| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner: was an unknown land to Bonaparte. He had often wondered what was up there;
he liked to know what was in all locked-up places and out-of-the-way
corners, but he was afraid to climb the ladder. So Bonaparte looked up,
and in the name of all that was tantalizing, questioned what the boy did up
there. The loft was used only as a lumber-room. What could the fellow
find up there to keep him so long?
Could the Boer-woman have beheld Waldo at that instant, any lingering doubt
which might have remained in her mind as to the boy's insanity would
instantly have vanished. For, having filled the salt-pot, he proceeded to
look for the box of books among the rubbish that filled the loft. Under a
pile of sacks he found it--a rough packing-case, nailed up, but with one
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson: crying to her maid, who had been all this time grimly waiting
in the hall, 'I lunch with Mr. Somerset. Take the cellar key
and bring some wine.'
In this gay humour she continued throughout the luncheon;
presented Somerset with a couple of dozen of wine, which she
made M'Pherson bring up from the cellar - 'as a present, my
dear,' she said, with another burst of tearful merriment,
'for your charming pictures, which you must be sure to leave
me when you go;' and finally, protesting that she dared not
spoil the absurdest houseful of madmen in the whole of
London, departed (as she vaguely phrased it) for the
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: whom Bunyan wrote that, "Though Christian had the hard hap to meet
in the valley with Apollyon, yet I must tell you, that in former
times men have met with angels here; have found pearls here; and
have in this place found the words of life."
CHAPTER IV. A COLLEGE MAGAZINE
I
ALL through my boyhood and youth, I was known and pointed out for
the pattern of an idler; and yet I was always busy on my own
private end, which was to learn to write. I kept always two books
in my pocket, one to read, one to write in. As I walked, my mind
was busy fitting what I saw with appropriate words; when I sat by
|
