| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: it would be hard to say that a man was, at that very time, worse,
or less to be loved, than when driving a hard bargain with all his
meaner wits about him. The difficulty is, that the alcoholic
virtues don't wash; but until the water takes their colors out, the
tints are very much like those of the true celestial stuff.
[Here I was interrupted by a question which I am very unwilling to
report, but have confidence enough in those friends who examine
these records to commit to their candor.
A PERSON at table asked me whether I "went in for rum as a steady
drink?" - His manner made the question highly offensive, but I
restrained myself, and answered thus:-]
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard: thanks to those invaluable chain shirts, of a comparatively harmless
nature, and to be dealt with by means of a few stitches and sticking-plaster. Mackenzie's, however, were serious, though fortunately
the spear had not severed any large artery. After that we had
a bath, and what a luxury it was! And having clad ourselves
in ordinary clothes, proceeded to the dining-room, where breakfast
was set as usual. It was curious sitting down there, drinking
tea and eating toast in an ordinary nineteenth-century sort of
way just as though we had not employed the early hours in a regular
primitive hand-to-hand Middle-Ages kind of struggle. As Good
said, the whole thing seemed more as though one had had a bad
nightmare just before being called, than as a deed done. When
Allan Quatermain |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde: Shakespeare, and when we went up to Trinity he became a member of
the A.D.C. his first term. I remember I was always very jealous of
his acting. I was absurdly devoted to him; I suppose because we
were so different in some things. I was a rather awkward, weakly
lad, with huge feet, and horribly freckled. Freckles run in Scotch
families just as gout does in English families. Cyril used to say
that of the two he preferred the gout; but he always set an
absurdly high value on personal appearance, and once read a paper
before our debating society to prove that it was better to be good-
looking than to be good. He certainly was wonderfully handsome.
People who did not like him, Philistines and college tutors, and
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