| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: love of virtue.
Wordsworth should perhaps come next. Every one has been
influenced by Wordsworth, and it is hard to tell precisely
how. A certain innocence, a rugged austerity of joy, a sight
of the stars, 'the silence that is in the lonely hills,'
something of the cold thrill of dawn, cling to his work and
give it a particular address to what is best in us. I do not
know that you learn a lesson; you need not - Mill did not -
agree with any one of his beliefs; and yet the spell is cast.
Such are the best teachers; a dogma learned is only a new
error - the old one was perhaps as good; but a spirit
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Outlaw of Torn by Edgar Rice Burroughs: him the familiar outlines of the castle of Roger de Ley-
bourn. This time the outlaw threw his fierce horde
completely around the embattled pile, before he ad-
vanced with a score of sturdy ruffians to reconnoiter.
Making sure that the drawbridge was raised, and
that he could not hope for stealthy entrance there, he
crept silently to the rear of the great building, and
there among the bushes his men searched for the lad-
der that Norman of Torn had seen the knavish servant
of My Lady Claudia unearth, that the outlaw might
visit the Earl of Buckingham, unannounced.
The Outlaw of Torn |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen: to make no contribution to the comfort of the others,
and would not say a word; and almost every thing that WAS
said, proceeded from Elinor, who was obliged to volunteer
all the information about her mother's health, their coming
to town, &c. which Edward ought to have inquired about,
but never did.
Her exertions did not stop here; for she soon
afterwards felt herself so heroically disposed as
to determine, under pretence of fetching Marianne,
to leave the others by themselves; and she really did it,
and THAT in the handsomest manner, for she loitered away
Sense and Sensibility |
