| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: driving him about in an open cab, between drinks, while he
blew himself scarlet at the pipes. This is a very sad story.
After he had borrowed money from every one, he and his pipes
suddenly disappeared from Sacramento, and when I last heard,
the police were looking for him.
I cannot say how this story amused me, when I felt myself so
thoroughly ripe on both sides to be duped in the same way.
It is at least a curious thing, to conclude, that the races
which wander widest, Jews and Scotch, should be the most
clannish in the world. But perhaps these two are cause and
effect: "For ye were strangers in the land of Egypt."
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Pool in the Desert by Sara Jeanette Duncan: They might have stopped there, but some demon of persistence drove
Madeline on. She besought help from her imagination; she was not
for the moment honest. It was an impulse--an equivocal impulse--
born doubtless of the equivocal situation, and it ended badly.
'She will bring something of the spring out to you,' said Madeline--
'the spring in England. How many years is it since you have seen
it? There will be a breath of the cowslips about her, and in her
eyes the soft wet of the English sky. Oh, you will be very glad to
see her.' The girl was well aware of her insincerity, but only
dimly of her cruelty. She was drawn on by something stronger than
her sense of honesty and humanity, a determination to see, to know,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: the next day to dine all together; and, indeed, we made a splendid
feast. I caused the ship's cook and his mate to come on shore and
dress our dinner, and the old cook's mate we had on shore assisted.
We brought on shore six pieces of good beef and four pieces of
pork, out of the ship's provisions, with our punch-bowl and
materials to fill it; and in particular I gave them ten bottles of
French claret, and ten bottles of English beer; things that neither
the Spaniards nor the English had tasted for many years, and which
it may be supposed they were very glad of. The Spaniards added to
our feast five whole kids, which the cooks roasted; and three of
them were sent, covered up close, on board the ship to the seamen,
Robinson Crusoe |
