| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from St. Ives by Robert Louis Stevenson: supper, and, I beg your pardon, sir, but I took the freedom of
playing her a chune or two. She didn't mind a bit; so this morning
I began to play to myself, and she flounced in, and flew up, and
carried on no end about Sunday!'
'You see, Rowley,' said I, 'they're all mad up here, and you have
to humour them. See and don't quarrel with Mrs. McRankine; and,
above all, don't argue with her, or you'll get the worst of it.
Whatever she says, touch your forelock and say, "If you please!" or
"I beg pardon, ma'am." And let me tell you one thing: I am sorry,
but you have to go to church with her again this afternoon. That's
duty, my boy!'
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: /political personage/ of 1840 represents, in some degree, the /Abbe/
of the eighteenth century. No drawing-room circle is complete without
one.
"My dear, this is my cousin, Count Steinbock," said Lisbeth,
introducing Wenceslas, whom Valerie seemed to have overlooked.
"Oh yes, I recognized Monsieur le Comte," replied Valerie with a
gracious bow to the artist. "I often saw you in the Rue du Doyenne,
and I had the pleasure of being present at your wedding.--It would be
difficult, my dear," said she to Lisbeth, "to forget your adopted son
after once seeing him.--It is most kind of you, Monsieur Stidmann,"
she went on, "to have accepted my invitation at such short notice; but
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Pericles by William Shakespeare: Seem'd not to strike, but smooth: but thou know'st this,
'Tis time to fear when tyrants seem to kiss.
Which fear so grew in me, I hither fled,
Under the covering of a careful night,
Who seem'd my good protector; and, being here,
Bethought me what was past, what might succeed.
I knew him tyrannous; and tyrants' fears
Decrease not, but grow faster than the years:
And should he doubt it, as no doubt he doth,
That I should open to the listening air
How many worthy princes' bloods were shed,
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