| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: than an impression. If we had breathing space, we should take
the occasion to modify and adjust; but at this breakneck
hurry, we are no sooner boys than we are adult, no sooner in
love than married or jilted, no sooner one age than we begin
to be another, and no sooner in the fulness of our manhood
than we begin to decline towards the grave. It is in vain to
seek for consistency or expect clear and stable views in a
medium so perturbed and fleeting. This is no cabinet science,
in which things are tested to a scruple; we theorise with a
pistol to our head; we are confronted with a new set of
conditions on which we have not only to pass a judgment, but
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The American by Henry James: "I made up my mind tolerably early in life that a beautiful
wife was the thing best worth having, here below.
It is the greatest victory over circumstances. When I say beautiful,
I mean beautiful in mind and in manners, as well as in person.
It is a thing every man has an equal right to; he may get it if he can.
He doesn't have to be born with certain faculties, on purpose;
he needs only to be a man. Then he needs only to use his will,
and such wits as he has, and to try."
"It strikes me that your marriage is to be rather a matter of vanity."
"Well, it is certain," said Newman, "that if people notice my wife
and admire her, I shall be mightily tickled."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Letters from England by Elizabeth Davis Bancroft: its conduct in its time of trial. Since the last steamer went,
Italy has shaken off the Austrian yoke, Denmark has lost her German
provinces, Poland has risen, or is about to rise, which will bring
Russia thundering down upon Liberal Europe. . . . Our whole
Diplomatic Corps are certainly "in a fix," and we are really the
only members of it who have any reason to be quite at ease. Two or
three have been called home to be Ministers of Foreign Affairs, as
they have learned something of constitutional liberty in England.
England is, as yet, all quiet, and I hope will keep so, but the
Chartists are at work and Ireland is full of inflammable matter.
But England does love her institutions, and is justly proud of their
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