| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister: after the intoning he sat with his homesick thoughts unchanged, to draw
both pain and enjoyment from the music that he had set to the Dixit
Dominus. He listened to the tender chorus that opens William Tell; and,
as the Latin psalm proceeded, pictures of the past rose between him and
the altar. One after another came these strains he had taken from operas
famous in their day, until at length the Padre was murmuring to some
music seldom long out of his heart--not the Latin verse which the choir
sang, but the original French words:
"Ah, voile man envie,
Voila mon seul desir:
Rendez moi ma patrie,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: vehicle of food to infant lips. To mince a chop for Nais, who has just
cut her last teeth, and mix the meat, cooked to a turn, with potatoes,
is a work of patience, and there are times, indeed, when none but a
mother could succeed in making an impatient child go through with its
meal.
No number of servants, then, and no English nurse can dispense a
mother from taking the field in person in that daily contest, where
gentleness alone should grapple with the little griefs and pains of
childhood. Louise, the care of these innocent darlings is a work to
engage the whole soul. To whose hand and eyes, but one's own, intrust
the task of feeding, dressing, and putting to bed? Broadly speaking, a
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: asperity, as I imagine, the young duke told him that "truly
he had no inclination for food." And our Henry improved the
occasion with something of a snuffle, assuring his prisoner
that God had fought against the French on account of their
manifold sins and transgressions. Upon this there supervened
the agonies of a rough sea passage; and many French lords,
Charles, certainly, among the number, declared they would
rather endure such another defeat than such another sore
trial on shipboard. Charles, indeed, never forgot his
sufferings. Long afterwards, he declared his hatred to a
seafaring life, and willingly yielded to England the empire
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