| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: as portraits. Certainly the standard was remarkably high, and
was wonderfully maintained, but there were one or two pictures
that might have been almost as well away - one or two that
seemed wanting in salt, and some that you can only hope were
not successful likenesses. Neither of the portraits of Sir
Walter Scott, for instance, were very agreeable to look upon.
You do not care to think that Scott looked quite so rustic and
puffy. And where is that peaked forehead which, according to
all written accounts and many portraits, was the
distinguishing characteristic of his face? Again, in spite of
his own satisfaction and in spite of Dr. John Brown, I cannot
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Bucolics by Virgil: Will own more priceless far- two beechen cups
By the divine art of Alcimedon
Wrought and embossed, whereon a limber vine,
Wreathed round them by the graver's facile tool,
Twines over clustering ivy-berries pale.
Two figures, one Conon, in the midst he set,
And one- how call you him, who with his wand
Marked out for all men the whole round of heaven,
That they who reap, or stoop behind the plough,
Might know their several seasons? Nor as yet
Have I set lip to them, but lay them by.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tales and Fantasies by Robert Louis Stevenson: 'My dear,' said Dick, desperately, 'you do not understand;
you do not know what it is to be treated with daily want of
comprehension and daily small injustices, through childhood
and boyhood and manhood, until you despair of a hearing,
until the thing rides you like a nightmare, until you almost
hate the sight of the man you love, and who's your father
after all. In short, Esther, you don't know what it is to
have a father, and that's what blinds you.'
'I see,' she said musingly, 'you mean that I am fortunate in
my father. But I am not so fortunate after all; you forget,
I do not know him; it is you who know him; he is already more
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