| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: He bows and goes again.
VIII
TO you, let snow and roses
And golden locks belong.
These are the world's enslavers,
Let these delight the throng.
For her of duskier lustre
Whose favour still I wear,
The snow be in her kirtle,
The rose be in her hair!
The hue of highland rivers
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: their pipes to listen. I have by me a copy of BOXIANA, on the
fly-leaves of which a youthful member of the fancy kept a
chronicle of remarkable events and an obituary of great men.
Here we find piously chronicled the demise of jockeys,
watermen, and pugilists - Johnny Moore, of the Liverpool Prize
Ring; Tom Spring, aged fifty-six; "Pierce Egan, senior, writer
OF BOXIANA and other sporting works" - and among all these,
the Duke of Wellington! If Benbow had lived in the time of
this annalist, do you suppose his name would not have been
added to the glorious roll? In short, we do not all feel
warmly towards Wesley or Laud, we cannot all take pleasure in
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Massimilla Doni by Honore de Balzac: dragging you down to the mire of this earth!
"The sun, monsieur, gives light and heat to the world, only because it
is at a distance of thirty-three millions of leagues. Get nearer to
it, and science warns you that it is not really hot or luminous,--for
science is of some use," he added, looking at Capraja.
"Not so bad for a Frenchman and a doctor," said Capraja, patting the
foreigner on the shoulder. "You have in those words explained the
thing which Europeans least understand in all Dante: his Beatrice.
Yes, Beatrice, that ideal figure, the queen of the poet's fancies,
chosen above all the elect, consecrated with tears, deified by memory,
and for ever young in the presence of ineffectual desire!"
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