| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: now in the freedom of a flannel shirt and a broad-brimmed gray felt
with flies stuck around the band.
In Professor John Wilson's Essays Critical and Imaginative, there
is a brilliant description of a bishop fishing, which I am sure is
drawn from the life: "Thus a bishop, sans wig and petticoat, in a
hairy cap, black jacket, corduroy breeches and leathern leggins,
creel on back and rod in hand, sallying from his palace, impatient
to reach a famous salmon-cast ere the sun leave his cloud, . . .
appears not only a pillar of his church, but of his kind, and in
such a costume is manifestly on the high road to Canterbury and the
Kingdom-Come." I have had the good luck to see quite a number of
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Chouans by Honore de Balzac: not what they pretend to be. That young man is clever. I took him for
a fool, but I begin to believe him as shrewd as myself."
The sailor, his mother, and Corentin awaited Mademoiselle de Verneuil,
whom the landlord went to summon. But the handsome traveller did not
come. The youth expected that she would make difficulties, and he left
the room, humming the popular song, "Guard the nation's safety," and
went to that of Mademoiselle de Verneuil, prompted by a keen desire to
get the better of her scruples and take her back with him. Perhaps he
wanted to solve the doubts which filled his mind; or else to exercise
the power which all men like to think they wield over a pretty woman.
"May I be hanged if he's a Republican," thought Corentin, as he saw
The Chouans |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: hear. If ye arena a'thegither dozened with cediocy, ye'll gang your
ways back to Cauldstaneslap, and ca' your loom, and ca' your loom, man!"
And Gilbert had taken him at the word and returned, with an expedition
almost to be called flight, to the house of his father. The clearest of
his inheritance was that family gift of prayer of which Kirstie had
boasted; and the baffled politician now turned his attention to
religious matters - or, as others said, to heresy and schism. Every
Sunday morning he was in Crossmichael, where he had gathered together,
one by one, a sect of about a dozen persons, who called themselves
"God's Remnant of the True Faithful," or, for short, "God's Remnant."
To the profane, they were known as "Gib's Deils." Bailie Sweedie, a
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