| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Merry Men by Robert Louis Stevenson: not very willing to be put down so shortly, for young men are
disputatious. At least I remember I retorted hotly, crying out
upon childish superstitions.
'And ye come frae the College!' sneered Uncle Gordon. 'Gude kens
what they learn folk there; it's no muckle service onyway. Do ye
think, man, that there's naething in a' yon saut wilderness o' a
world oot wast there, wi' the sea grasses growin', an' the sea
beasts fechtin', an' the sun glintin' down into it, day by day?
Na; the sea's like the land, but fearsomer. If there's folk
ashore, there's folk in the sea - deid they may be, but they're
folk whatever; and as for deils, there's nane that's like the sea
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: art of prophecy'; and as regards the miracle told of the AEginetan
statues of the primeval deities of Damia and Auxesia, that they
fell on their knees when the sacrilegious Athenians strove to carry
them off, 'any one may believe it,' he says, 'who likes, but as for
myself, I place no credence in the tale.'
So much then for the rationalistic spirit of historical criticism,
as far as it appears explicitly in the works of this great and
philosophic writer; but for an adequate appreciation of his
position we must also note how conscious he was of the value of
documentary evidence, of the use of inscriptions, of the importance
of the poets as throwing light on manners and customs as well as on
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Paz by Honore de Balzac: is no longer what it was. Brilliancy of mind needs leisure and certain
social inequalities to bring it out. There is, probably, more real
conversation in Vienna or St. Petersburg than in Paris. Equals do not
need to employ delicacy or shrewdness in speech; they blurt out things
as they are. Consequently the dandies of Paris did not discover the
great seigneur in the rather heedless young fellow who, in their
talks, would flit from one subject to another, all the more intent
upon amusement because he had just escaped from a great peril, and,
finding himself in a city where his family was unknown, felt at
liberty to lead a loose life without the risk of disgracing his name.
But one fine day in 1834 Adam suddenly bought a house in the rue de la
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