| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from To-morrow by Joseph Conrad: There was a boxful of packets of various flower-
seeds to choose from, for the front garden. "He
will doubtless let you have your say about that, my
dear," Captain Hagberd intimated to her across
the railing.
Miss Bessie's head remained bowed over her
work. She had heard all this so many times. But
now and then she would rise, lay down her sewing,
and come slowly to the fence. There was a charm
in these gentle ravings. He was determined that
his son should not go away again for the want of a
To-morrow |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: or indifferent temperaments as at other times, let us see how
they will be affected by reigning circumstances.
Let us first remember, says Taine, that the evils which depress
the public will also depress the artist. His risks are no less
than those of less gifted people. He is liable to suffer from
plague or famine, to be ruined by unfair taxation or
conscription, or to see his children massacred and his wife led
into captivity by barbarians. And if these ills do not reach him
personally, he must at least behold those around him affected by
them. In this way, if he is joyous by temperament, he must
inevitably become less joyous; if he is melancholy, he must
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: earthly life, is the mysterious light which glides into the innermost
folds of human history, setting them in relief and magnifying them in
the eyes of those who still have Faith. Besides, if there be
stupidity, why not concern ourselves with the sorrows of stupidity as
well as with the sorrows of genius? The former is a social element
infinitely more abundant than the latter.
So, then, Mademoiselle Cormon was guilty in the eyes of the world of
the divine ignorance of virgins. She was no observer, and her behavior
with her suitors proved it. At this very moment, a young girl of
sixteen, who had never opened a novel, would have read a hundred
chapters of a love story in the eyes of Athanase Granson, where
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