| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne: or not. Another advises a subscription."
"The villain!" exclaimed I.
"A fact!" said Oberon. "In short, of all the seventeen
booksellers, only one has vouchsafed even to read my tales; and
he--a literary dabbler himself, I should judge--has the
impertinence to criticise them, proposing what he calls vast
improvements, and concluding, after a general sentence of
condemnation, with the definitive assurance that he will not be
concerned on any terms."
"It might not be amiss to pull that fellow's nose," remarked I.
"If the whole 'trade' had one common nose, there would be some
The Snow Image |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: my mind's eye the western, indented with deep bays, the bolder
northern, and the beautifully scalloped southern shore, where
successive capes overlap each other and suggest unexplored coves
between. The forest has never so good a setting, nor is so
distinctly beautiful, as when seen from the middle of a small lake
amid hills which rise from the water's edge; for the water in which
it is reflected not only makes the best foreground in such a case,
but, with its winding shore, the most natural and agreeable boundary
to it. There is no rawness nor imperfection in its edge there, as
where the axe has cleared a part, or a cultivated field abuts on it.
The trees have ample room to expand on the water side, and each
Walden |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: Here also sound thy fans, O God,
Here too thy banners move abroad:
Forest and city, sea and shore,
And the whole earth, thy threshing-floor!
The drums of war, the drums of peace,
Roll through our cities without cease,
And all the iron halls of life
Ring with the unremitting strife.
The common lot we scarce perceive.
Crowds perish, we nor mark nor grieve:
The bugle calls - we mourn a few!
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