| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost: is gone to pass some days. As I plainly perceived,' said
Lescaut, `the advantage it may be to you, I took care to let him
know that she had lately experienced very considerable losses;
and I so piqued his generosity that he began by giving her four
hundred crowns. I told him that was well enough for a
commencement, but that my sister would have, for the future, many
demands for money; that she had the charge of a young brother,
who had been thrown upon her hands since the death of our
parents; and that, if he wished to prove himself worthy of her
affections, he would not allow her to suffer uneasiness upon
account of this child, whom she regarded as part of herself.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Faraday as a Discoverer by John Tyndall: vibrating surfaces was too heavily laden with experiments.
Footnotes to Chapter 2
[1] The reader's attention is directed to the concluding paragraph
of the 'Preface to the Second Edition written in December, 1869.
Also to the Life of Faraday by Dr. Bence Jones, vol. i. p. 338 et seq.
[2] Paris: Life of Davy, p. 391.
[3] Viz., November 19, December 3 and 10.
[4] I make the following extract from a letter from Sir John Herschel,
written to me from Collingwood, on the 3rd of November, 1867:--
'I will take this opportunity to mention that I believe myself to
have originated the suggestion of the employment of borate of lead
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: far fallen from his hopeful youth that he cannot pluck up an
enthusiasm over anything but his ledger, I venture to doubt whether
he will be near so nice a fellow, and whether he would welcome,
with so good a grace, a couple of drenched Englishmen paddling into
Brussels in the dusk.
When we had changed our wet clothes and drunk a glass of pale ale
to the Club's prosperity, one of their number escorted us to an
hotel. He would not join us at our dinner, but he had no objection
to a glass of wine. Enthusiasm is very wearing; and I begin to
understand why prophets were unpopular in Judaea, where they were
best known. For three stricken hours did this excellent young man
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