| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: should qualify as illegal,' he said when he told us the story, 'made,
as it was, at seven o'clock in the morning.'
" 'Go,' he answered, with the gesture and attitude of a Mirabeau,
'tell your master in what condition you find me.'
"The assistant apologized and withdrew. La Palferine, seeing the young
man on the landing, rose in the attire celebrated in verse in
/Britannicus/ to add, 'Remark the stairs! Pay particular attention to
the stairs; do not forget to tell him about the stairs!'
"In every position into which chance has thrown La Palferine, he has
never failed to rise to the occasion. All that he does is witty and
never in bad taste; always and in everything he displays the genius of
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: the long days in which we have been served, not according to our
deserts, but our desires; on the pit and the miry clay, the
blackness of despair, the horror of misconduct, from which our feet
have been plucked out. For our sins forgiven or prevented, for our
shame unpublished, we bless and thank Thee, O God. Help us yet
again and ever. So order events, so strengthen our frailty, as
that day by day we shall come before Thee with this song of
gratitude, and in the end we be dismissed with honour. In their
weakness and their fear, the vessels of thy handiwork so pray to
Thee, so praise Thee. Amen.
SUNDAY
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: starved slowly to death without uttering a complaint or making a
sign.
"All through the stifling summer of 1770 the people went on
dying. The husbandmen sold their cattle; they sold their
implements of agriculture; they devoured their seed-grain; they
sold their sons and daughters, till at length no buyer of
children could be found; they ate the leaves of trees and the
grass of the field; and in June, 1770, the Resident at the Durbar
affirmed that the living were feeding on the dead. Day and night
a torrent of famished and disease-stricken wretches poured into
the great cities. At an early period of the year pestilence had
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
