| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: VIEILLESSE POUVAIT, is a very pretty sentiment, but not
necessarily right. In five cases out of ten, it is not so
much that the young people do not know, as that they do not
choose. There is something irreverent in the speculation, but
perhaps the want of power has more to do with the wise
resolutions of age than we are always willing to admit. It
would be an instructive experiment to make an old man young
again and leave him all his SAVOIR. I scarcely think he would
put his money in the Savings Bank after all; I doubt if he
would be such an admirable son as we are led to expect; and as
for his conduct in love, I believe firmly he would out-Herod
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: Philadelphia "nearly equals, and sometimes exceeds, that of the best
wood in Paris, though this immense capital annually requires more
than three hundred thousand cords, and is surrounded to the distance
of three hundred miles by cultivated plains." In this town the
price of wood rises almost steadily, and the only question is, how
much higher it is to be this year than it was the last. Mechanics
and tradesmen who come in person to the forest on no other errand,
are sure to attend the wood auction, and even pay a high price for
the privilege of gleaning after the woodchopper. It is now many
years that men have resorted to the forest for fuel and the
materials of the arts: the New Englander and the New Hollander, the
Walden |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Moran of the Lady Letty by Frank Norris: bursting down upon him through a haze of smoke; Charlie dying in
the hammock aboard the schooner, ordering his funeral with its
"four-piecee horse"; Coronado; the incongruous scene in the
ballroom; and, last of all, Josie Herrick in white duck and kid
shoes, giving her hand to Moran in her boots and belt, hatless as
ever, her sleeves rolled up to above the elbows, her white, strong
arm extended, her ruddy face, and pale, milk-blue eyes gravely
observant, her heavy braids, yellow as ripening rye, hanging over
her shoulder and breast.
A sudden explosion of cold wind, striking down blanket-wise and
bewildering from out the west, made Wilbur look up quickly. The
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