| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from St. Ives by Robert Louis Stevenson: own hand. And the nightmare at the crossroads was the regular
punishment, according to the laws of England, for an act which the
Romans honoured as a virtue! Whenever an Englishman begins to
prate of civilisation (as, indeed, it's a defect they are rather
prone to), I hear the measured blows of a mallet, see the
bystanders crowd with torches about the grave, smile a little to
myself in conscious superiority - and take a thimbleful of brandy
for the stomach's sake.
I believe it must have been at my next stage, for I remember going
to bed extremely early, that I came to the model of a good old-
fashioned English inn, and was attended on by the picture of a
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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: The crouch'd hollows and all the oracular hills
With dread voices of power. A roused million or more
Of wild echoes reluctantly rise from their hoar
Immemorial ambush, and roll in the wake
Of the cloud, whose reflection leaves vivid the lake.
And the wind, that wild robber, for plunder descends
From invisible lands, o'er those black mountain ends;
He howls as he hounds down his prey; and his lash
Tears the hair of the timorous wan mountain-ash,
That clings to the rocks, with her garments all torn,
Like a woman in fear; then he blows his hoarse horn
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Black Dwarf by Walter Scott: that I abhor, or I must put the seal to my father's ruin."
"This night?--at what hour?"
"Ere midnight."
"And twilight," said the Dwarf, "has already passed away. But
fear nothing, there is ample time to protect thee."
"And my father?" continued Isabella, in a suppliant tone.
"Thy father," replied the Dwarf, "has been, and is, my most
bitter enemy. But fear not; thy virtue shall save him. And now,
begone; were I to keep thee longer by me, I might again fall into
the stupid dreams concerning human worth from which I have been
so fearfully awakened. But fear nothing--at the very foot of the
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