| 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: only beginning to see my true method.
(1) As to STUDIES. There are two more already gone to Stephen.
YOSHIDA TORAJIRO, which I think temperate and adequate; and
THOREAU, which will want a really Balzacian effort over the proofs.
But I want BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AND THE ART OF VIRTUE to follow; and
perhaps also WILLIAM PENN, but this last may be perhaps delayed for
another volume - I think not, though. The STUDIES will be an
intelligent volume, and in their latter numbers more like what I
mean to be my style, or I mean what my style means to be, for I am
passive. (2) The ESSAYS. Good news indeed. I think ORDERED SOUTH
must be thrown in. It always swells the volume, and it will never
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson: a handful of raw onions. The bread was hard and sour, the cheese
like leather; even the onion, which ranks with the truffle and the
nectarine in the chief place of honour of earth's fruits, is not
perhaps a dish for princesses when raw. But she ate, if not with
appetite, with courage; and when she had eaten, did not disdain the
pitcher. In all her life before, she had not tasted of gross food
nor drunk after another; but a brave woman far more readily accepts
a change of circumstances than the bravest man. All that while, the
woodman continued to observe her furtively, many low thoughts of
fear and greed contending in his eyes. She read them clearly, and
she knew she must begone.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad: at six; or somebody, coming in, had seen her in the morning, or
expected to meet her that evening. After the inns that command the
roads, the churches were the buildings she frequented most. Men of
liberal opinions would induce small children to run into sacred
edifices to see whether Madame Levaille was there, and to tell her
that so-and-so was in the road waiting to speak to her about potatoes,
or flour, or stones, or houses; and she would curtail her devotions,
come out blinking and crossing herself into the sunshine; ready to
discuss business matters in a calm, sensible way across a table in the
kitchen of the inn opposite. Latterly she had stayed for a few days
several times with her son-in-law, arguing against sorrow and
Tales of Unrest |
