| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: openings through which a faint light shone. Thence he saw the Loire,
the beautiful slopes of Saint-Cyr, the gloomy marvels of Plessis,
where lights were gleaming in the deep recesses of a few windows. Far
in the distance lay the beautiful meadows of Touraine and the silvery
stream of her river. Every point of this lovely nature had, at that
moment, a mysterious grace; the windows, the waters, the roofs of the
houses shone like diamonds in the trembling light of the moon. The
soul of the young seigneur could not repress a sad and tender emotion.
"Suppose it is my last farewell!" he said to himself.
He stood there, feeling already the terrible emotions his adventure
offered him, and yielding to the fears of a prisoner who,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: way. There is scarcely an aspect of contemporary Japanese life, scarcely an
element in the social, political, and military questions involved in the
present conflict with Russia which is not made clear in one or another of
the books with which he has charmed American readers.
He characterizes Kwaidan as "stories and studies of strange things." A
hundred thoughts suggested by the book might be written down, but most of
them would begin and end with this fact of strangeness. To read the very
names in the table of contents is like listening to a Buddhist bell, struck
somewhere far away. Some of his tales are of the long ago, and yet they
seem to illumine the very souls and minds of the little men who are at this
hour crowding the decks of Japan's armored cruisers. But many of the
Kwaidan |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Lesson of the Master by Henry James: welcomed him without many words, in the manner of a woman able to
trust him to understand and conscious that so pleasant an occasion
would in every way speak for itself. She offered him no particular
facility for sitting by her, and when they had all subsided again
he found himself still next General Fancourt, with an unknown lady
on his other flank.
"That's my daughter - that one opposite," the General said to him
without lose of time. Overt saw a tall girl, with magnificent red
hair, in a dress of a pretty grey-green tint and of a limp silken
texture, a garment that clearly shirked every modern effect. It
had therefore somehow the stamp of the latest thing, so that our
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