| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: If this is the honesty of authors - to take what you can get and
console yourself because publishers are rich - take my name from
the rolls of that association. 'Tis a caucus of weaker thieves,
jealous of the stronger. - Ever yours,
THE ROARING R. L. S.
You will see from the enclosed that I have stuck to what I think my
dues pretty tightly in spite of this flourish: these are my words
for a poor ten-pound note!
Letter: TO W. E. HENLEY
BONALLIE TOWERS, BOURNEMOUTH, [WINTER, 1884].
MY DEAR LAD, - Here was I in bed; not writing, not hearing, and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll: "A-SITTING ON A GATE": and the tune's my own invention.'
So saying, he stopped his horse and let the reins fall on its
neck: then, slowly beating time with one hand, and with a faint
smile lighting up his gentle foolish face, as if he enjoyed the
music of his song, he began.
Of all the strange things that Alice saw in her journey Through
The Looking-Glass, this was the one that she always remembered
most clearly. Years afterwards she could bring the whole scene
back again, as if it had been only yesterday--the mild blue
eyes and kindly smile of the Knight--the setting sun gleaming
through his hair, and shining on his armour in a blaze of light
Through the Looking-Glass |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Crito by Plato: to consider whether I shall or shall not do as you say. For I am and
always have been one of those natures who must be guided by reason,
whatever the reason may be which upon reflection appears to me to be the
best; and now that this chance has befallen me, I cannot repudiate my own
words: the principles which I have hitherto honoured and revered I still
honour, and unless we can at once find other and better principles, I am
certain not to agree with you; no, not even if the power of the multitude
could inflict many more imprisonments, confiscations, deaths, frightening
us like children with hobgoblin terrors (compare Apol.). What will be the
fairest way of considering the question? Shall I return to your old
argument about the opinions of men?--we were saying that some of them are
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