| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson: lost, when he saw he had but effected an exchange of enemies, and
overthrown Harris to set Hastie up, no sign of weakness appeared in
his behaviour, and he withdrew to his tent, already determined (I
must suppose) upon affronting the incredible hazard of his last
expedient, with the same easy, assured, genteel expression and
demeanour as he might have left a theatre withal to join a supper
of the wits. But doubtless within, if we could see there, his soul
trembled.
Early in the night, word went about the camp that he was sick; and
the first thing the next morning he called Hastie to his side, and
inquired most anxiously if he had any skill in medicine. As a
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The House of Dust by Conrad Aiken: You have my head before you . . . on a platter.
VIII. COFFINS: INTERLUDE
Wind blows. Snow falls. The great clock in its tower
Ticks with reverberant coil and tolls the hour:
At the deep sudden stroke the pigeons fly . . .
The fine snow flutes the cracks between the flagstones.
We close our coats, and hurry, and search the sky.
We are like music, each voice of it pursuing
A golden separate dream, remote, persistent,
Climbing to fire, receding to hoarse despair.
What do you whisper, brother? What do you tell me? . . .
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith: had taken him into her employ, a homeless waif of the
streets,--his father had been drowned from a canal-boat she was
unloading,--and had set him down beside Patsy's crib to watch
while she was at her work, Jennie being at school, Cully had loved
the little cripple with the devotion of a dog to its master.
Lawless, rough, often cruel, and sometimes vindictive as Cully was
to others, a word from Patsy humbled and softened him.
And Patsy loved Cully. His big, broad chest, stout, straight
legs, strong arms and hands, were his admiration and constant
pride. Cully was his champion and his ideal. The waif's
recklessness and audacity were to him only evidences of so much
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