| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: took service with her distant kinsfolk, the Rutherfords, and black-a-
vised Gilbert, twenty years older, who farmed the Cauldstaneslap,
married, and begot four sons between 1773 and 1784, and a daughter, like
a postscript, in '97, the year of Camperdown and Cape St. Vincent. It
seemed it was a tradition in the family to wind up with a belated girl.
In 1804, at the age of sixty, Gilbert met an end that might be called
heroic. He was due home from market any time from eight at night till
five in the morning, and in any condition from the quarrelsome to the
speechless, for he maintained to that age the goodly customs of the
Scots farmer. It was known on this occasion that he had a good bit of
money to bring home; the word had gone round loosely. The laird had
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: softened as it is, of the tone then dominant in Paris drawing-rooms.
"Turn your eyes a little towards the pedestal supporting that
candelabrum--do you see a young lady with her hair drawn back a la
Chinoise!--There, in the corner to the left; she has bluebells in the
knot of chestnut curls which fall in clusters on her head. Do not you
see her? She is so pale you might fancy she was ill, delicate-looking,
and very small; there--now she is turning her head this way; her
almond-shaped blue eyes, so delightfully soft, look as if they were
made expressly for tears. Look, look! She is bending forward to see
Madame de Vaudremont below the crowd of heads in constant motion; the
high head-dresses prevent her having a clear view."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: expedients, 'till he hath at least some glympse of hope, that
there will ever be some hearty and sincere attempt to put them
into practice.
But, as to my self, having been wearied out for many years with
offering vain, idle, visionary thoughts, and at length utterly
despairing of success, I fortunately fell upon this proposal,
which, as it is wholly new, so it hath something solid and real,
of no expence and little trouble, full in our own power, and
whereby we can incur no danger in disobliging England. For this
kind of commodity will not bear exportation, and flesh being of
too tender a consistence, to admit a long continuance in salt,
A Modest Proposal |
