| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: steerer, who is the confidence trick and the card-sharper man of
other climes, secures his prey. He clavers them over with
flattery as the snake clavers the rabbit. The incident depressed
me because it showed I had left the innocent East far behind and
was come to a country where a man must look out for himself. The
very hotels bristled with notices about keeping my door locked
and depositing my valuables in a safe. The white man in a lump
is bad. Weeping softly for O-Toyo (little I knew then that my
heart was to be torn afresh from my bosom) I fell asleep in the
clanging hotel.
Next morning I had entered upon the deferred inheritance. There
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Start in Life by Honore de Balzac: connected with a billiard-room. These rooms, lying parallel to one
another, were separated by a staircase, in front of which was a sort
of peristyle which formed an entrance-hall, on which the two suits of
rooms on either side opened. The kitchen was beneath the dining-room,
for the whole building was raised ten steps from the ground level.
By placing her own bedroom on the first floor above the ground-floor,
Madame Moreau was able to transform the chamber adjoining the salon
into a boudoir. These two rooms were richly furnished with beautiful
pieces culled from the rare old furniture of the chateau. The salon,
hung with blue and white damask, formerly the curtains of the state-
bed, was draped with ample portieres and window curtains lined with
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: gradually to modern times. Things began to assume a more
familiar aspect. Spinoza, Fichte, Saint Simon,--one heard about
them now. If you could but have heard the school-master deal
with these his enemies! With what tender charity for the man,
what relentless vengeance for the belief, he pounced on them,
dragging the soul out of their systems, holding it up for slow
slaughter! As for Humanity, (how Knowles lingered on that word,
with a tenderness curious in so uncouth a mass of flesh!)--as for
Humanity, it was a study to see it stripped and flouted and
thrown out of doors like a filthy rag by this poor old Howth, a
man too child-hearted to kill a spider. It was pleasanter to
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
