| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: would glance in between the swirling wreaths. The dismal quarter
of Soho seen under these changing glimpses, with its muddy ways,
and slatternly passengers, and its lamps, which had never been
extinguished or had been kindled afresh to combat this mournful
reinvasion of darkness, seemed, in the lawyer's eyes, like a
district of some city in a nightmare. The thoughts of his mind,
besides, were of the gloomiest dye; and when he glanced at the
companion of his drive, he was conscious of some touch of that
terror of the law and the law's officers, which may at times
assail the most honest.
As the cab drew up before the address indicated, the fog
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Essays of Francis Bacon by Francis Bacon: quietly, by degrees scarce to be perceived. For
otherwise, whatsoever is new is unlooked for; and
ever it mends some, and pairs others; and he that
is holpen, takes it for a fortune, and thanks the
time; and he that is hurt, for a wrong, and imput-
eth it to the author. It is good also, not to try experi-
ments in states, except the necessity be urgent, or
the utility evident; and well to beware, that it be
the reformation, that draweth on the change, and
not the desire of change, that pretendeth the refor-
mation. And lastly, that the novelty, though it be
Essays of Francis Bacon |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: has chosen a rough, unrhymed, lyrical verse; sometimes
instinct with a fine processional movement; often so rugged
and careless that it can only be described by saying that he
has not taken the trouble to write prose. I believe myself
that it was selected principally because it was easy to
write, although not without recollections of the marching
measures of some of the prose in our English Old Testament.
According to Whitman, on the other hand, "the time has
arrived to essentially break down the barriers of form
between Prose and Poetry . . . for the most cogent purposes
of those great inland states, and for Texas, and California,
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