| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson: state of your affairs, Mackellar," says he. "Beyond the amount of
your caution, you may not be worth a farthing, for what I know."
"I have been a long while in your service, and never told a lie,
nor yet asked a favour for myself," said I, "until to-day."
"A favour for the Master," he returned, quietly. "Do you take me
for a fool, Mackellar? Understand it once and for all, I treat
this beast in my own way; fear nor favour shall not move me; and
before I am hoodwinked, it will require a trickster less
transparent than yourself. I ask service, loyal service; not that
you should make and mar behind my back, and steal my own money to
defeat me."
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: hope that I shall always have spirit to despise and you power to
repress."
"Discontent," answered Rasselas, "will not always be without reason
under the most just and vigilant administration of public affairs.
None, however attentive, can always discover that merit which
indigence or faction may happen to obscure, and none, however
powerful, can always reward it. Yet he that sees inferior desert
advanced above him will naturally impute that preference to
partiality or caprice, and indeed it can scarcely be hoped that any
man, however magnanimous by Nature or exalted by condition, will be
able to persist for ever in fixed and inexorable justice of
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: no rest until it was completed, and set up where a figure-head
has always stood, from that time to this, in the vessel's prow.
"And now," cried he, as he stood gazing at the calm, majestic
face of the statue, "I must go to the Talking Oak and inquire
what next to do."
"There is no need of that, Jason," said a voice which, though
it was far lower, reminded him of the mighty tones of the great
oak. "When you desire good advice, you can seek it of me."
Jason had been looking straight into the face of the image when
these words were spoken. But he could hardly believe either his
ears or his eyes. The truth was, however, that the oaken lips
Tanglewood Tales |
