| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: CHAPTER XVI. A HUMBLE REMONSTRANCE (11)
WE have recently (12) enjoyed a quite peculiar pleasure: hearing,
in some detail, the opinions, about the art they practise, of Mr.
Walter Besant and Mr. Henry James; two men certainly of very
different calibre: Mr. James so precise of outline, so cunning of
fence, so scrupulous of finish, and Mr. Besant so genial, so
friendly, with so persuasive and humorous a vein of whim: Mr. James
the very type of the deliberate artist, Mr. Besant the
impersonation of good nature. That such doctors should differ will
excite no great surprise; but one point in which they seem to agree
fills me, I confess, with wonder. For they are both content to
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Enemies of Books by William Blades: CHAPTER VI.
THE BOOKWORM.
THERE is a sort of busy worm
That will the fairest books deform,
By gnawing holes throughout them;
Alike, through every leaf they go,
Yet of its merits naught they know,
Nor care they aught about them.
Their tasteless tooth will tear and taint
The Poet, Patriot, Sage or Saint,
Not sparing wit nor learning.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: "merely
¹Turgénieff was ten years older than Tolstoy.
friendly relations," so my father also felt too warmly toward
Iván Sergéyevitch, and that was the very reason why
they could never meet without disagreeing and quarreling. In
confirmation of what I say here is a passage from a letter written
by V. Bótkin, a close friend of my father's and of
Iván Sergéyevitch's, to A. A. Fet, written
immediately after their quarrel:
I think that Tolstoy really has a passionately affectionate
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