| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Don Quixote by Miquel de Cervantes: going to the wars was attended with such success, that by his
gallant conduct and courage, and without any help save his own
merit, he rose in a few years to be captain of infantry, and to see
himself on the high-road and in position to be given the command of
a corps before long; but Fortune was against him, for where he might
have expected her favour he lost it, and with it his liberty, on
that glorious day when so many recovered theirs, at the battle of
Lepanto. I lost mine at the Goletta, and after a variety of adventures
we found ourselves comrades at Constantinople. Thence he went to
Algiers, where he met with one of the most extraordinary adventures
that ever befell anyone in the world."
Don Quixote |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson: Ballantrae, attainted in the troubles: entrusted into the hands of
John M'Brair in the Lawnmarket of Edinburgh, W.S.; this 20th day of
September Anno Domini 1789; by him to be kept secret until the
revolution of one hundred years complete, or until the 20th day of
September 1889: the same compiled and written by me, EPHRAIM
MACKELLAR,
For near forty years Land Steward on the estates of his Lordship.
As Mr. Thomson is a married man, I will not say what hour had
struck when we laid down the last of the following pages; but I
will give a few words of what ensued.
"Here," said Mr. Thomson, "is a novel ready to your hand: all you
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Glasses by Henry James: was one dear chair, creeping to its last full stop, by the side of
which I always walked. There was in fine weather the coast of
France to look at, and there were the usual things to say about it;
there was also in every state of the atmosphere our friend Mrs.
Meldrum, a subject of remark not less inveterate. The widow of an
officer in the Engineers, she had settled, like many members of the
martial miscellany, well within sight of the hereditary enemy, who
however had left her leisure to form in spite of the difference of
their years a close alliance with my mother. She was the
heartiest, the keenest, the ugliest of women, the least apologetic,
the least morbid in her misfortune. She carried it high aloft with
|
