| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: try to make them clear and true to others. It has been a slow
task, because the right word has not always been easy to find,
and I wanted to keep free from conventionality in the thought
and close to nature in the picture. It is enough to cause a
man no little shame to see how small is the fruit of so long
labour.
And yet, after all, when one wishes to write
about life, especially about that part of it which is inward,
the inwrought experience of living may be of value. And that
is a thing which one cannot get in haste, neither can it be
made to order. Patient waiting belongs to it; and rainy days
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lucile by Owen Meredith: And here and there, faintly, through serpentine slips
Of verdant rose-gardens deep-sheltered with screens
Of airy acacias and dark evergreens,
They could mark the white dresses and catch the light songs
Of the lovely Parisians that wander'd in throngs,
Led by Laughter and Love through the old eventide
Down the dream-haunted valley, or up the hillside.
XVII.
At length, at the door of the inn l'HERISSON,
Pray go there, if ever you go to Luchon!)
The two horsemen, well pleased to have reached it, alighted
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: secret struggle he had witnessed, and the full repentance which had at
last overtaken his stubborn lamb when the great reckoning of eternity
was brought home to him,--all these things had combined to break down
Monsieur Bonnet, whose nervous, electrical nature entered into the
sufferings of others as though they were his own. Souls that resemble
that noble soul espouse so ardently the impressions, miseries,
passions, sufferings of those in whom they are interested, that they
actually feel them, and in a horrible manner, too; for they are able
to measure their extent,--a knowledge which escapes others who are
blinded by selfishness of heart or the paroxysm of grief. It is here
that a priest like Monsieur Bonnet becomes an artist who feels, rather
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