| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: nerves affected, or some exquisite refinement in the
architecture of the brain, which is indeed to the sense of the
beautiful as the eye or the ear to the sense of hearing or
sight. We admire splendid views and great pictures; and yet
what is truly admirable is rather the mind within us, that
gathers together these scattered details for its delight, and
makes out of certain colours, certain distributions of
graduated light and darkness, that intelligible whole which
alone we call a picture or a view. Hazlitt, relating in one
of his essays how he went on foot from one great man's house
to another's in search of works of art, begins suddenly to
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Young Forester by Zane Grey: keep his eye on the stew-pots, and it occurred to me that Greaser had
better keep his eye on Ken Ward. When I saw Bud lie down I remembered what
Dick had whispered. I pretended to be absorbed in my fishing, but really I
was watching Greaser. As usual, he was smoking, and appeared listless, but
he still held on to the lasso.
Suddenly I saw a big blue revolver lying on a stone and I could even catch
the glint of brass shells in the cylinder. It was not close to Bud nor so
very close to Greaser. If he should drop the lasso! A wild idea possessed
me--held me in its grip. just then the stew-pot boiled over. There was a
sputter and a cloud of steam, Greaser lazily swore in Mexican; he got up to
move the stew-pot and dropped the lasso.
The Young Forester |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: misfortune. But after all, this was not the place for you. . . . You
ought to be in a fine curiosity shop on the Boulevard des Capucines.
Do you know that I have made nearly a hundred thousand francs in ten
years? And if you will have as much some day, I will undertake to make
a handsome fortune for you--as my wife. You would be the mistress--my
sister should wait on you and do the work of the house, and--"
A heartrending moan from the little tailor cut the tempter short; the
death agony had begun.
"Go away," said La Cibot. "You are a monster to talk of such things
and my poor man dying like this--"
"Ah! it is because I love you," said Remonencq; "I could let
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