| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: her to attract me as much as it pleased me to go. This preference was
the cause of more than one passage at arms between her and my mother,
and nothing intensifies feeling like the icy breath of persecution.
How charming was her greeting, "Here you are, little rogue!" when
curiosity had taught me how to glide with stealthy snake-like
movements to her room. She felt that I loved her, and this childish
affection was welcome as a ray of sunshine in the winter of her life.
I don't know what went on in her rooms at night, but she had many
visitors; and when I came on tiptoe in the morning to see if she were
awake, I would find the drawing-room furniture disarranged, the card-
tables set out, and patches of snuff scattered about.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: which may happen to come into my mind at the time. Will that be agreeable
to you?
Aristodemus said that Phaedrus and the company bid him speak in any manner
which he thought best. Then, he added, let me have your permission first
to ask Agathon a few more questions, in order that I may take his
admissions as the premisses of my discourse.
I grant the permission, said Phaedrus: put your questions. Socrates then
proceeded as follows:--
In the magnificent oration which you have just uttered, I think that you
were right, my dear Agathon, in proposing to speak of the nature of Love
first and afterwards of his works--that is a way of beginning which I very
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: me certain imperfect series of letters written, as he says, 'at
hazard, for one does not know at the time what is important and
what is not': the earlier addressed to Miss Austin, after the
betrothal; the later to Mrs. Jenkin the young wife. I should
premise that I have allowed myself certain editorial freedoms,
leaving out and splicing together much as he himself did with the
Bona cable: thus edited the letters speak for themselves, and will
fail to interest none who love adventure or activity. Addressed as
they were to her whom he called his 'dear engineering pupil,' they
give a picture of his work so clear that a child may understand,
and so attractive that I am half afraid their publication may prove
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