| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: by the other models as showing a want of seriousness, and is not
generally approved of. They are engaged by the day and by the
half-day. The tariff is a shilling an hour, to which great artists
usually add an omnibus fare. The two best things about them are
their extraordinary prettiness, and their extreme respectability.
As a class they are very well behaved, particularly those who sit
for the figure, a fact which is curious or natural according to the
view one takes of human nature. They usually marry well, and
sometimes they marry the artist. For an artist to marry his model
is as fatal as for a GOURMET to marry his cook: the one gets no
sittings, and the other gets no dinners.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Somebody's Little Girl by Martha Young: the nursery-window there grew a Pride of China Tree, and it filled
all the window with small, green, moving leaves--''
Then Bessie Bell just let the lady draw her up close, and she leaned
up against the lady.
She felt so happy now, for she knew she had found the Wisest Woman
in the world, for this lady knew the things that little girls only
could remember. If she had thought about it she would have told the
lady about the tiny apple-trees with the very, very small apples on
them, and other rows of apple-trees over those, and other rows on
top of those, and on top of all a row of big round red apples.
Then the lady might have said: Yes, there were apple-trees like that
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Distinguished Provincial at Paris by Honore de Balzac: are a journalist with all your illusions left. You believe in
friendship. Here we are friends or foes, as it happens; we strike down
a friend with the weapon which by rights should only be turned against
an enemy. You will find out, before very long, that fine sentiments
will do nothing for you. If you are naturally kindly, learn to be ill-
natured, to be consistently spiteful. If you have never heard this
golden rule before, I give it you now in confidence, and it is no
small secret. If you have a mind to be loved, never leave your
mistress until you have made her shed a tear or two; and if you mean
to make your way in literature, let other people continually feel your
teeth; make no exception even of your friends; wound their
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