| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: that (for some obscure reason) Stevenson was a favourite alias with
the M'Gregors.
Letter: TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM
[VAILIMA], OCTOBER 8TH 1894.
MY DEAR CUMMY, - So I hear you are ailing? Think shame to
yourself! So you think there is nothing better to be done with
time than that? and be sure we can all do much ourselves to decide
whether we are to be ill or well! like a man on the gymnastic bars.
We are all pretty well. As for me, there is nothing the matter
with me in the world, beyond the disgusting circumstance that I am
not so young as once I was. Lloyd has a gymnastic machine, and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Main Street by Sinclair Lewis: she made a home.
III
Her first acquaintances were the members of the Tincomb
Methodist Church, a vast red-brick tabernacle. Vida Sherwin
had given her a letter to an earnest woman with eye-glasses,
plaid silk waist, and a belief in Bible Classes, who introduced
her to the Pastor and the Nicer Members of Tincomb. Carol
recognized in Washington as she had in California a transplanted
and guarded Main Street. Two-thirds of the church-
members had come from Gopher Prairies. The church was
their society and their standard; they went to Sunday service,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Passionate Pilgrim by William Shakespeare: Her faith, her oaths, her tears, and all were jestings.
She burn'd with love, as straw with fire flameth;
She burn'd out love, as soon as straw outburneth;
She framed the love, and yet she foil'd the framing;
She bade love last, and yet she fell a-turning.
Was this a lover, or a lecher whether?
Bad in the best, though excellent in neither.
VIII.
If music and sweet poetry agree,
As they must needs, the sister and the brother,
Then must the love be great 'twixt thee and me,
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