| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: moving among my inferiors with simplicity, not so much as a swagger
to indicate that I was a gentleman after all, and had broken meat to
tea. Still, I was like one with a patent of nobility in a drawer at
home; and when I felt out of spirits I could go down and refresh
myself with a look of that brass plate.
For all these advantages I paid but two guineas. Six guineas is the
steerage fare; eight that by the second cabin; and when you remember
that the steerage passenger must supply bedding and dishes, and, in
five cases out of ten, either brings some dainties with him, or
privately pays the steward for extra rations, the difference in price
becomes almost nominal. Air comparatively fit to breathe, food
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Camille by Alexandre Dumas: do then! He has gambled, I know; without telling you of it, I
know also, but, in a moment of madness, he might have lost part
of what I have saved, during many years, for my daughter's
portion, for him, and for the repose of my old age. What might
have happened may yet happen.
"Are you sure, besides, that the life which you are giving up for
him will never again come to attract you? Are you sure, you who
have loved him, that you will never love another? Would you
not-suffer on seeing the hindrances set by your love to your
lover's life, hindrances for which you would be powerless to
console him, if, with age, thoughts of ambition should succeed to
Camille |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from In the Cage by Henry James: proceeded to show him the kind of eye she turned on such people and
to give him a sketch of what that eye discovered, she reduced him
to the particular prostration in which he could still be amusing to
her.
CHAPTER X
"They're the most awful wretches, I assure you--the lot all about
there."
"Then why do you want to stay among them?"
"My dear man, just because they ARE. It makes me hate them so."
"Hate them? I thought you liked them."
"Don't be stupid. What I 'like' is just to loathe them. You
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