| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: roughly, seized him by the arm.
"What do you mean? what did you mean by saying that? What makes you
think that Hermis - my father would have missed me?"
The doctor turned about and looked him all over with a clinical eye. A
far more stupid man than Dr. Gregory might have guessed the truth; but
ninety-nine out of a hundred, even if they had been equally inclined to
kindness, would have blundered by some touch of charitable exaggeration.
The doctor was better inspired. He knew the father well; in that white
face of intelligence and suffering, he divined something of the son; and
he told, without apology or adornment, the plain truth.
"When you had the measles, Mr. Archibald, you had them gey and ill; and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Amazing Interlude by Mary Roberts Rinehart: that is my duty, and nothing else. So if you will accept the offer of
my car, which is a shameful one but travels well, we can continue our
journey."
Long, long afterward, Sara Lee found a snapshot of Henri's car, taken
by a light-hearted British officer. Found it and sat for a long time
with it in her hand, thinking and remembering that first day she saw it,
in the sun at Calais. A long low car it was, once green, but now
roughly painted gray. But it was not the crude painting, significant
as it was, that brought so close the thing she was going to. It was
that the car was but a shell of a car. The mud guards were crumpled up
against the side. Body and hood were pitted with shrapnel. A door had
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson: I was mad to have her, and cared nothing for the consequence; and
the poor soul, knowing that which I was still ignorant of, believed
it, every word, and had her head nigh turned with vanity and
gratitude. Now, of all this I had no guess; I was one of those
most opposed to any nonsense about native women, having seen so
many whites eaten up by their wives' relatives, and made fools of
in the bargain; and I told myself I must make a stand at once, and
bring her to her bearings. But she looked so quaint and pretty as
she ran away and then awaited me, and the thing was done so like a
child or a kind dog, that the best I could do was just to follow
her whenever she went on, to listen for the fall of her bare feet,
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