| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Vailima Letters by Robert Louis Stevenson: down to the boat, where we got our food aboard, such a cargo
- like the Swiss Family Robinson, we said. However, a squall
began, Tauilo refused to let us go, and we came back to the
house for half-an-hour or so, when my ladies distinguished
themselves by walking through a Fono (council), my mother
actually taking up a position between Mataafa and Popo! It
was about five when we started - turtle, pigs, taro, etc., my
mother, Belle, myself, Tauilo, a portly friend of hers with
the voice of an angel, and a pronunciation so delicate and
true that you could follow Samoan as she sang, and the two
tired boys Frank and Jimmie, with the two bad oars and the
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Recruit by Honore de Balzac: there was always in her bearing, in her voice, a sort of looking
forward to some unknown future, as in girlhood. The most insensible
man would find himself in love with her, and yet be restrained by a
sort of respectful fear, inspired by her courtly and polished manners.
Her soul, naturally noble, but strengthened by cruel trials, was far
indeed from the common run, and men did justice to it. Such a soul
necessarily required a lofty passion; and the affections of Madame de
Dey were concentrated on a single sentiment,--that of motherhood. The
happiness and pleasure of which her married life was deprived, she
found in the passionate love she bore her son. She loved him not only
with the pure and deep devotion of a mother, but with the coquetry of
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad: blame them for trying for such coolness and such
air as there was to be found on deck. He himself,
of course, knew better.
He was, indeed, a reasonable man. Yet it
would have been hard to say that the others were
not. The last few days had been for us like the
ordeal of the fiery furnace. One really couldn't
quarrel with their common, imprudent humanity
making the best of the moments of relief, when the
night brought in the illusion of coolness and the
starlight twinkled through the heavy, dew-laden
The Shadow Line |
