| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: reputed the worst, or coarsest, of fresh-water fish. But the Barbel
affords an angler choice sport, being a lusty and a cunning fish; so lusty
and cunning as to endanger the breaking of the angler's line, by running
his head forcibly towards any covert, or hole, or bank, and then striking
at the line, to break it off, with his tail; as is observed by Plutarch, in his
book De Industria Animalium: and also so cunning, to nibble and suck
off your worm close to the hook, and yet avoid the letting the hook
come into his mouth.
The Barbel is also curious for his baits; that is to say, that they be clean
and sweet; that is to say, to have your worms well scoured, and not kept
in sour and musty moss, for he is a curious feeder: but at a well-scoured
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: with <179> chilly-looking knuckles, ignored nails, and too much wrist.
I feel very well disposed towards her when my eye falls on them.
She put one forward now, evidently thinking it would be kissed too.
"Did you know," said Irais, seeing the movement, "that it is the custom
here to kiss women's hands?"
"But only married women's," I added, not desiring her to feel out of it,
"never young girls'."
She drew it in again. "It is a pretty custom," she said with a sigh;
and pensively inscribed it in her book.
January 15th.--The bills for my roses and bulbs and other last year's
horticultural indulgences were all on the table when I came down to breakfast
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Silas Marner by George Eliot: gone to bed, then? If so, why had he left a light? That was a
strange forgetfulness in a miser. Dunstan knocked still more
loudly, and, without pausing for a reply, pushed his fingers through
the latch-hole, intending to shake the door and pull the
latch-string up and down, not doubting that the door was fastened.
But, to his surprise, at this double motion the door opened, and he
found himself in front of a bright fire which lit up every corner of
the cottage--the bed, the loom, the three chairs, and the table--
and showed him that Marner was not there.
Nothing at that moment could be much more inviting to Dunsey than
the bright fire on the brick hearth: he walked in and seated himself
Silas Marner |
