| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: of wood and keep the camp-fire glowing, for it will be hard to start
it up again, if you let it get too low. There is little use in
fishing or hunting in such a storm. But there is plenty to do in
the camp: guns to be cleaned, tackle to be put in order, clothes to
be mended, a good story of adventure to be read, a belated letter to
be written to some poor wretch in a summer hotel, a game of hearts
or cribbage to be played, or a hunting-trip to be planned for the
return of fair weather. The tent is perfectly dry. A little trench
dug around it carries off the surplus water, and luckily it is
pitched with the side to the lake, so that you get the pleasant heat
of the fire without the unendurable smoke. Cooking in the rain has
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from St. Ives by Robert Louis Stevenson: with a perfect galaxy of stars, and showed every cat that stirred
in a quarter of a mile. During this interval, I have to direct
your sympathies on the Vicomte de Saint-Yves! All addressed me
softly, like folk round a sickbed. Our Italian corporal, who had
got a dozen of oysters from a fishwife, laid them at my feet, as
though I were a Pagan idol; and I have never since been wholly at
my ease in the society of shellfish. He who was the best of our
carvers brought me a snuff-box, which he had just completed, and
which, while it was yet in hand, he had often declared he would not
part with under fifteen dollars. I believe the piece was worth the
money too! And yet the voice stuck in my throat with which I must
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: of Madame du Barry, she buried her diamonds. At that time she was only
fifty-three years of age, and according to her lady's-maid, afterwards
married to a gendarme named Soudry, "Madame was more beautiful than
ever." My dear Nathan, Nature has no doubt her private reasons for
treating women of this sort like spoiled children; excesses, instead
of killing them, fatten them, preserve them, renew their youth. Under
a lymphatic appearance they have nerves which maintain their
marvellous physique; they actually preserve their beauty for reasons
which would make a virtuous woman haggard. No, upon my word, Nature is
not moral!
Mademoiselle Laguerre lived an irreproachable life at Les Aigues, one
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