| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Chronicles of the Canongate by Walter Scott: element, which, of course, fell not on us. But it was his only
fault, and when pressed to drink DOCH-AN-DORROCH to my ladyship's
good health, it would have been ill taken to have refused the
pledge; nor was he willing to do such discourtesy. It was, I
repeat, his only fault. Nor had we any great right to complain;
for if it rendered him a little more talkative, it augmented his
ordinary share of punctilious civility, and he only drove slower,
and talked longer and more pompously, than when he had not come
by a drop of usquebaugh. It was, we remarked, only on such
occasions that Donald talked with an air of importance of the
family of MacLeish; and we had no title to be scrupulous in
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: great artist delighting in the vague, undecided lines of his sketch,
knowing well that in a moment of inspiration he can complete the
masterpiece still waiting to come to birth. Many a time, seeing
d'Arthez on the point of advancing, she enjoyed stopping him short,
with an imposing air and manner. She drove back the hidden storms of
that still young heart, raised them again, and stilled them with a
look, holding out her hand to be kissed, or saying some trifling
insignificant words in a tender voice.
These manoeuvres, planned in cold blood, but enchantingly executed,
carved her image deeper and deeper on the soul of that great writer
and thinker whom she revelled in making childlike, confiding, simple,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from An Unsocial Socialist by George Bernard Shaw: there was only threepence in it. You know that I get my money on
the first of every month. It never lasts longer than a week. The
idea of my having seven and sixpence on the sixteenth is
ridiculous."
"But I put it to you, Miss, ain't it twice as ridiculous for me,
a poor laborer, to give up money wot I never got?"
Vague alarm crept upon Agatha as the testimony of her senses was
contradicted. "All I know is," she protested, "that I did not
give it to you; so my pennies must have turned into half-crowns
in your pocket."
"Mebbe so," said Smilash gravely. "I've heard, and I know it for
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