| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: and an afterthought, but it is too abstract an idea to move
people greatly in moments of swift and momentous decision. It
is from something more immediate, some determination of blood
to the head, some trick of the fancy, that the breach is
stormed or the bold word spoken. I am sure a fellow shooting
an ugly weir in a canoe has exactly as much thought about fame
as most commanders going into battle; and yet the action, fall
out how it will, is not one of those the muse delights to
celebrate. Indeed it is difficult to see why the fellow does
a thing so nameless and yet so formidable to look at, unless
on the theory that he likes it. I suspect that is why; and I
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Chronicles of the Canongate by Walter Scott: interest, absorbed in her own grief, indifferent to every thing
else.
With her mode of life, or rather of existence, the reader is
already as far acquainted as I have the power of making him. Of
her death, I can tell him nothing. It is supposed to have
happened several years after she had attracted the attention of
my excellent friend Mrs. Bethune Baliol. Her benevolence, which
was never satisfied with dropping a sentimental tear, when there
was room for the operation of effective charity, induced her to
make various attempts to alleviate the condition of this most
wretched woman. But all her exertions could only render Elspat's
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Kenilworth by Walter Scott: physiognomy the sharp, keen expression of inventive genius and
prompt intellect, which, joined to quick and brilliant eyes, a
well-formed mouth, and an intelligent smile, often gives grace
and interest to features which are both homely and irregular.
Janet looked at him with the sly simplicity of her sect, and
replied, "Notwithstanding thy boasted honesty, friend, and
although I am not accustomed to read and pass judgment on such
volumes as thou hast submitted to my perusal, I think I see in
thy countenance something of the pedlar-something of the
picaroon."
"On a small scale, perhaps," said Wayland Smith, laughing. "But
Kenilworth |
