| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Case of The Lamp That Went Out by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: read it to us when it came this morning. It's from the Madam. She
sent messages to all of us and orders, so Mrs. Bernauer read us the
whole letter. There's no secrets in that."
"The button has been pressed in too far and caught down. That seems
to be the main trouble," said Muller, readjusting the little knob.
"I'd like a candle here if I may have one."
"I'll get you a light at once," said Franz. But his intentions,
however excellent, seemed difficult of fulfilment. It was rapidly
growing dark, and the old butler peered about uncertainly. "Stupid,"
he muttered. "I don't know where she keeps the matches. I can't
find them anywhere. I'm not a smoker, so I haven't any in my pocket."
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: of the flesh or the despicable taste for high society. So
that the first duty of any man who is to write is
intellectual. Designedly or not, he has so far set himself
up for a leader of the minds of men; and he must see that his
own mind is kept supple, charitable, and bright. Everything
but prejudice should find a voice through him; he should see
the good in all things; where he has even a fear that he does
not wholly understand, there he should be wholly silent; and
he should recognise from the first that he has only one tool
in his workshop, and that tool is sympathy. (13)
The second duty, far harder to define, is moral. There are a
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: her head to and fro like a nurse, the big wings of her cap and the
wings of the bird flapped in unison. When clouds gathered on the
horizon and the thunder rumbled, Loulou would scream, perhaps because
he remembered the storms in his native forests. The dripping of the
rain would excite him to frenzy; he flapped around, struck the ceiling
with his wings, upset everything, and would finally fly into the
garden to play. Then he would come back into the room, light on one of
the andirons, and hop around in order to get dry.
One morning during the terrible winter of 1837, when she had put him
in front of the fire-place on account of the cold, she found him dead
in his cage, hanging to the wire bars with his head down. He had
A Simple Soul |
