| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Father Damien by Robert Louis Stevenson: you were doomed to silence; that when you had been outstripped in
that high rivalry, and sat inglorious in the midst of your well-
being, in your pleasant room - and Damien, crowned with glories and
horrors, toiled and rotted in that pigsty of his under the cliffs
of Kalawao - you, the elect who would not, were the last man on
earth to collect and propagate gossip on the volunteer who would
and did.
I think I see you - for I try to see you in the flesh as I write
these sentences - I think I see you leap at the word pigsty, a
hyperbolical expression at the best. "He had no hand in the
reforms," he was "a coarse, dirty man"; these were your own words;
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Another Study of Woman by Honore de Balzac: coachmen's voices could be heard from the courtyard, and the pawing
and champing made by horses when asking to be taken back to their
stable.
"The statesman, my friends, exists by one single quality," said the
Minister, playing with his gold and mother-of-pearl dessert knife. "To
wit: the power of always being master of himself; of profiting more or
less, under all circumstances, by every event, however fortuitous; in
short, of having within himself a cold and disinterested other self,
who looks on as a spectator at all the changes of life, noting our
passions and our sentiments, and whispering to us in every case the
judgment of a sort of moral ready-reckoner."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Light of Western Stars by Zane Grey: along the railroad, an' Pat Hawe trailed bandits up to the ranch.
He hunts hard an' then all to onct he quits. Stewart says Pat
Hawe wasn't scared, but he discovered signs or somethin', or got
wind in some strange way that there was in the gang of bandits
some fellers he didn't want to ketch. Sabe? Then Gene, quicker
'n a flash, springs his plan on me. He'd go down to Padre Marcos
an' hev him help to find out all possible from your Mexican
servants. I was to hurry up hyar an' tell you--give you orders,
Miss Majesty. Ain't that amazin' strange? Wal, you're to
assemble all your guests in the kitchen. Make a grand bluff an'
pretend, as your help has left, that it'll be great fun fer your
The Light of Western Stars |
