| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: and though I have since waded to an end in a kind of wager with
myself, the exercise was quite without enjoyment. There is something
disquieting in these considerations. I still think the visit to
Ponto's the best part of the BOOK OF SNOBS: does that mean that I
was right when I was a child, or does it mean that I have never grown
since then, that the child is not the man's father, but the man? and
that I came into the world with all my faculties complete, and have
only learned sinsyne to be more tolerant of boredom? . . .
CHAPTER VIII - THE IDEAL HOUSE
Two things are necessary in any neighbourhood where we propose to
spend a life: a desert and some living water.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: sprinkled him with a fine white shower of which the scent proved that
three chins had just been shaved. Standing on tiptoe, in the farthest
corner of their loft, to enjoy their victim's rage, the lads ceased
laughing on seeing the haughty indifference with which the young man
shook his cloak, and the intense contempt expressed by his face as he
glanced up at the empty window-frame.
At this moment a slender white hand threw up the lower half of one of
the clumsy windows on the third floor by the aid of the sash runners,
of which the pulley so often suddenly gives way and releases the heavy
panes it ought to hold up. The watcher was then rewarded for his long
waiting. The face of a young girl appeared, as fresh as one of the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen: at her tongue's end, and was on the point of proposing it,
when Mrs. Grant spoke.
Wednesday was fine, and soon after breakfast the barouche
arrived, Mr. Crawford driving his sisters; and as everybody
was ready, there was nothing to be done but for Mrs. Grant
to alight and the others to take their places. The place
of all places, the envied seat, the post of honour,
was unappropriated. To whose happy lot was it to fall?
While each of the Miss Bertrams were meditating how best,
and with the most appearance of obliging the others,
to secure it, the matter was settled by Mrs. Grant's saying,
Mansfield Park |
