| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: or trussed up to a gallows, remains a riddle for foolhardy
commentators. It appears his health had suffered in the pit
at Meun; he was thirty years of age and quite bald; with the
notch in his under lip where Sermaise had struck him with the
sword, and what wrinkles the reader may imagine. In default
of portraits, this is all I have been able to piece together,
and perhaps even the baldness should be taken as a figure of
his destitution. A sinister dog, in all likelihood, but with
a look in his eye, and the loose flexile mouth that goes with
wit and an overweening sensual temperament. Certainly the
sorriest figure on the rolls of fame.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Merry Men by Robert Louis Stevenson: increase in multitude under his gaze.
'I see,' he said, turning to the young man. 'We are in a rat-
trap.'
'Something of that size. Did you ever see a squirrel turning in a
cage? and another squirrel sitting philosophically over his nuts?
I needn't ask you which of them looked more of a fool.'
CHAPTER II. THE PARSON'S MARJORY.
After some years the old people died, both in one winter, very
carefully tended by their adopted son, and very quietly mourned
when they were gone. People who had heard of his roving fancies
supposed he would hasten to sell the property, and go down the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: ambassadors, and great lords, and I know their ways. How intolerable
it makes bourgeois life! After all, a playwright is not a Rastignac
nor a Rhetore----'
"Du Bruel looked ghastly at this. Two days afterwards we met in the
/foyer/ at the Opera, and took a few turns together. The conversation
fell on Tullia.
" 'Do not take my ravings on the boulevard too seriously,' said he; 'I
have a violent temper.'
"For two winters I was a tolerably frequent visitor at du Bruel's
house, and I followed Claudine's tactics closely. She had a splendid
carriage. Du Bruel entered public life; she made him abjure his
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