| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: shout and carouse over their whisky-toddy; and not the most Dutch-
bottomed and severe faces among them all, not even the solemn elders
themselves, but were capable of singular gambols at the voice of love.
Men drawing near to an end of life's adventurous journey - maids
thrilling with fear and curiosity on the threshold of entrance - women
who had borne and perhaps buried children, who could remember the
clinging of the small dead hands and the patter of the little feet now
silent - he marvelled that among all those faces there should be no face
of expectation, none that was mobile, none into which the rhythm and
poetry of life had entered. "O for a live face," he thought; and at
times he had a memory of Lady Flora; and at times he would study the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: "Venice is a fine city; I have always had a fancy to go there."
The old man's face lighted up, the wrinkles began to work, he was
violently excited.
"If I went with you, you would not lose your time," he said.
"Don't talk about Venice to our Doge," put in the fiddle, "or you will
start him off, and he has stowed away a couple of bottles as it is--
has the prince!"
"Come, strike up, Daddy Canard!" added the flageolet, and the three
began to play. But while they executed the four figures of a square
dance, the Venetian was scenting my thoughts; he guessed the great
interest I felt in him. The dreary, dispirited look died out of his
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Kenilworth by Walter Scott: bride, and gratified by her unrepressed admiration, the dark eye
and noble features of the Earl expressed passions more gentle
than the commanding and aspiring look which usually sat upon his
broad forehead, and in the piercing brilliancy of his dark eye;
and he smiled at the simplicity which dictated the questions she
put to him concerning the various ornaments with which he was
decorated.
"The embroidered strap, as thou callest it, around my knee," he
said, "is the English Garter, an ornament which kings are proud
to wear. See, here is the star which belongs to it, and here the
Diamond George, the jewel of the order. You have heard how King
Kenilworth |
