| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: before shop-windows we didn't look into. About one thing we were
clear: if he was staying on for fuller communication we should at
least have a letter from him that would help us through the dregs
of delay. We understood his staying on, and yet each of us saw, I
think, that the other hated it. The letter we were clear about
arrived; it was for Gwendolen, and I called on her in time to save
her the trouble of bringing it to me. She didn't read it out, as
was natural enough; but she repeated to me what it chiefly
embodied. This consisted of the remarkable statement that he'd
tell her after they were married exactly what she wanted to know.
"Only THEN, when I'm his wife - not before," she explained. "It's
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Little Britain by Washington Irving: the Lambs. It is true that Mrs. Lamb, when she had no
engagements with her quality acquaintance, would give little
humdrum tea-junketings to some of her old cronies, "quite," as
she would say, "in a friendly way;" and it is equally true that
her invitations were always accepted, in spite of all previous
vows to the contrary. Nay, the good ladies would sit and be
delighted with the music of the Miss Lambs, who would
condescend to strum an Irish melody for them on the piano;
and they would listen with wonderful interest to Mrs. Lamb's
anecdotes of Alderman Plunket's family, of Portsokenward,
and the Miss Timberlakes, the rich heiresses of Crutched-Friars;
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Tapestried Chamber by Walter Scott: DEATH OF THE LAIRD'S JOCK by Sir Walter Scott.
[The manner in which this trifle was introduced at the time to
Mr. F. M. Reynolds, editor of The Keepsake of 1828, leaves no
occasion for a preface.]
AUGUST 1831.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE KEEPSAKE.
You have asked me, sir, to point out a subject for the pencil,
and I feel the difficulty of complying with your request,
although I am not certainly unaccustomed to literary composition,
or a total stranger to the stores of history and tradition, which
afford the best copies for the painter's art. But although SICUT
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