| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: about him. A whole town may be talking of his affairs; may calumniate
and decry him, but if he has no good friends, he will know nothing
about it. Now the innocent du Bousquier was superb in his ignorance.
No one had told him as yet of Suzanne's revelations; he therefore
appeared very jaunty and slightly conceited when the company, leaving
the dining-room, returned to the salon for their coffee; several other
guests had meantime assembled for the evening. Mademoiselle Cormon,
from a sense of shamefacedness, dared not look at the terrible
seducer. She seized upon Athanase, and began to lecture him with the
queerest platitudes about royalist politics and religious morality.
Not possessing, like the Chevalier de Valois, a snuff-box adorned with
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Enoch Arden, &c. by Alfred Tennyson: And reach'd the ship and caught the rope,
And whistled to the morning star.
And while he whistled long and loud
He heard a fierce mermaiden cry,
`O boy, tho' thou art young and proud,
I see the place where thou wilt lie.
`The sands and yeasty surges mix
In caves about the dreary bay,
And on thy ribs the limpet sticks,
And in thy heart the scrawl shall play.'
`Fool,' he answer'd, `death is sure
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Enemies of Books by William Blades: Of pepper, snuff, or 'bacca smoke,
And Russia-calf they make a joke.
Yet, why should sons of science
These puny rankling reptiles dread?
'Tis but to let their books be read,
And bid the worms defiance."
J. DORASTON.
A most destructive Enemy of books has been the bookworm.
I say "has been," because, fortunately, his ravages in all civilised
countries have been greatly restricted during the last fifty years.
This is due partly to the increased reverence for antiquity which has
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