| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: that too familiar delicacy. He was asleep; he did not wake till
eleven. He then set to work again on the copy he had begun the night
before, which was lying on the table.
On going downstairs we asked the price of that room, and were told
fifteen francs a month.
In the course of a few days, we were fully informed as to the mode of
life of Z. Marcas. He did copying, at so much a sheet no doubt, for a
law-writer who lived in the courtyard of the Sainte-Chapelle. He
worked half the night; after sleeping from six till ten, he began
again and wrote till three. Then he went out to take the copy home
before dinner, which he ate at Mizerai's in the Rue Michel-le-Comte,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: The turning-point of the great Dutch Revolution, so far as it
concerned the provinces which now constitute Belgium, was the
famous siege and capture of Antwerp by Alexander Farnese, Duke of
Parma. The siege was a long one, and the resistance obstinate,
and the city would probably not have been captured if famine had
not come to the assistance of the besiegers. It is interesting,
therefore, to inquire what steps the civic authorities had taken
to prevent such a calamity. They knew that the struggle before
them was likely to be the life-and-death struggle of the Southern
Netherlands; they knew that there was risk of their being
surrounded so that relief from without would be impossible; they
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: consul to Cagliari some distance on its way. On our return we
found the boat had been unsuccessful; she was allowed to drop
astern, while we grappled for the cable in the ELBA [without more
success]. The coast is a low mountain range covered with brushwood
or heather - pools of water and a sandy beach at their feet. I
have not yet been ashore, my hands having been very full all day.
'June 9.
'Grappling for the cable outside the bank had been voted too
uncertain; [and the day was spent in] efforts to pull the cable off
through the sand which has accumulated over it. By getting the
cable tight on to the boat, and letting the swell pitch her about
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