| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: of all who practised it, and hence became a perpetual
education to their nobler natures; and which, pay it as you
please, in the large majority of the best cases will still be
underpaid. For surely, at this time of day in the nineteenth
century, there is nothing that an honest man should fear more
timorously than getting and spending more than he deserves.
CHAPTER III - BOOKS WHICH HAVE INFLUENCED ME (14)
THE Editor (15) has somewhat insidiously laid a trap for his
correspondents, the question put appearing at first so
innocent, truly cutting so deep. It is not, indeed, until
after some reconnaissance and review that the writer awakes
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: the principle of analogy which introduced into this 'indigesta moles' order
and measure. It was Anaxagoras' omou panta chremata, eita nous elthon
diekosmese: the light of reason lighted up all things and at once began to
arrange them. In every sentence, in every word and every termination of a
word, this power of forming relations to one another was contained. There
was a proportion of sound to sound, of meaning to meaning, of meaning to
sound. The cases and numbers of nouns, the persons, tenses, numbers of
verbs, were generally on the same or nearly the same pattern and had the
same meaning. The sounds by which they were expressed were rough-hewn at
first; after a while they grew more refined--the natural laws of euphony
began to affect them. The rules of syntax are likewise based upon analogy.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: They asked me about my comrade, and I completely exonerated him. Then
they said to me: 'The crime must lie between you, your comrade, the
innkeeper, and his wife. This morning all the windows and doors were
found securely fastened.' At those words," continued the poor fellow,
"I had neither voice, nor strength, nor soul to answer. More sure of
my comrade than I could be of myself, I could not accuse him. I saw
that we were both thought equally guilty of the murder, and that I was
considered the most clumsy. I tried to explain the crime by
somnambulism, and so protect my friend; but there I rambled and
contradicted myself. No, I am lost. I read my condemnation in the eyes
of my judges. They smiled incredulously. All is over. No more
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