| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac: rent from January 1st by sending in a receipt, which the porter's wife
had amused herself by detaining. On the 15th a summons to pay was
served on M. d'Espard, the portress had delivered it at her leisure,
and he supposed it to be some misunderstanding, not conceiving of any
incivility from a man in whose house he had been living for twelve
years. The Marquis was actually seized by a bailiff at the time when
his man-servant had gone to carry the money for the rent to the
landlord.
This arrest, assiduously reported to the persons with whom he was in
treaty for his undertaking, had alarmed some of them who were already
doubtful of M. d'Espard's solvency in consequence of the enormous sums
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Child of Storm by H. Rider Haggard: I came to myself again and saw, instead of my mother, the stately figure
of Saduko bending over me upon one side, and on the other that of Scowl,
the half-bred Hottentot, who was weeping, for his hot tears fell upon my
face.
"He is gone," said poor Scowl; "that bewitched beast with the split horn
has killed him. He is gone who was the best white man in all South
Africa, whom I loved better than my father and all my relatives."
"That you might easily do, Bastard," answered Saduko, "seeing that you
do not know who they are. But he is not gone, for the 'Opener-of-Roads'
said that he would live; also I got my spear into the heart of that
buffalo before he had kneaded the life out of him, as fortunately the
Child of Storm |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: which the Church is so fond - so rightly fond, I dare say - for in
life as in art the mood of rebellion closes up the channels of the
soul, and shuts out the airs of heaven. Yet I must learn these
lessons here, if I am to learn them anywhere, and must be filled
with joy if my feet are on the right road and my face set towards
'the gate which is called beautiful,' though I may fall many times
in the mire and often in the mist go astray.
This New Life, as through my love of Dante I like sometimes to call
it, is of course no new life at all, but simply the continuance, by
means of development, and evolution, of my former life. I remember
when I was at Oxford saying to one of my friends as we were
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