| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tales and Fantasies by Robert Louis Stevenson: out-manoeuvred him.
'Back to the Ludge?' cried he, in shrill tones of protest.
'Drive on at once!' roared John, and slammed the door behind
him, so that the crazy chariot rocked and jingled.
Forth trundled the cab into the Christmas streets, the fare
within plunged in the blackness of a despair that neighboured
on unconsciousness, the driver on the box digesting his
rebuke and his customer's duplicity. I would not be thought
to put the pair in competition; John's case was out of all
parallel. But the cabman, too, is worth the sympathy of the
judicious; for he was a fellow of genuine kindliness and a
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: held as testifying that the power of judging aright and of distinguishing
truth from error, which is properly what is called good sense or reason,
is by nature equal in all men; and that the diversity of our opinions,
consequently, does not arise from some being endowed with a larger share
of reason than others, but solely from this, that we conduct our thoughts
along different ways, and do not fix our attention on the same objects.
For to be possessed of a vigorous mind is not enough; the prime requisite
is rightly to apply it. The greatest minds, as they are capable of the
highest excellences, are open likewise to the greatest aberrations; and
those who travel very slowly may yet make far greater progress, provided
they keep always to the straight road, than those who, while they run,
Reason Discourse |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from McTeague by Frank Norris: a canteen full of water. Securely bound to the pommel of
the saddle was the canvas sack with its precious five
thousand dollars, all in twenty-dollar gold pieces. But
strange enough in that horrid waste of sand and sage was the
object that McTeague himself persistently carried--the
canary in its cage, about which he had carefully wrapped a
couple of old flour-bags.
At about five o'clock that morning McTeague had crossed
several trails which seemed to be converging, and, guessing
that they led to a water hole, had followed one of them and
had brought up at a sort of small sundried sink which
McTeague |
