| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: at a child playing some innocent game. Those days of a divided
interest between man and wife were gone. She was now fully
converted, and more. Beekman and Cornelia were one; and she was the
one.
The last time I saw the De Peysters he was following her along the
Beaverkill, carrying a landing-net and a basket, but no rod. She
paused for a moment to exchange greetings, and then strode on down
the stream. He lingered for a few minutes longer to light a pipe.
"Well, old man," I said, "you certainly have succeeded in making an
angler of Mrs. De Peyster."
"Yes, indeed," he answered,--"have n't I?" Then he continued, after
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: to death had not Paquita been there, upon an ottoman, in a loose
voluptuous wrapper, free to scatter her gaze of gold and flame, free
to show her arched foot, free of her luminous movements. This first
interview was what every /rendezvous/ must be between persons of
passionate disposition, who have stepped over a wide distance quickly,
who desire each other ardently, and who, nevertheless, do not know
each other. It is impossible that at first there should not occur
certain discordant notes in the situation, which is embarrassing until
the moment when two souls find themselves in unison.
If desire gives a man boldness and disposes him to lay restraint
aside, the mistress, under pain of ceasing to be woman, however great
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lesser Hippias by Plato: was probably due to their definite form, and to their inimitable
excellence. The three dialogues which we have offered in the Appendix to
the criticism of the reader may be partly spurious and partly genuine; they
may be altogether spurious;--that is an alternative which must be frankly
admitted. Nor can we maintain of some other dialogues, such as the
Parmenides, and the Sophist, and Politicus, that no considerable objection
can be urged against them, though greatly overbalanced by the weight
(chiefly) of internal evidence in their favour. Nor, on the other hand,
can we exclude a bare possibility that some dialogues which are usually
rejected, such as the Greater Hippias and the Cleitophon, may be genuine.
The nature and object of these semi-Platonic writings require more careful
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