| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson: lay desert. From Falesa round about to Papa-malulu, there was
neither house, nor man, nor planted fruit-tree; and the reef being
mostly absent, and the shores bluff, the sea beat direct among
crags, and there was scarce a landing-place.
I should tell you that after I began to go in the woods, although
no one offered to come near my store, I found people willing enough
to pass the time of day with me where nobody could see them; and as
I had begun to pick up native, and most of them had a word or two
of English, I began to hold little odds and ends of conversation,
not to much purpose to be sure, but they took off the worst of the
feeling, for it's a miserable thing to be made a leper of.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Pivot of Civilization by Margaret Sanger: latent in all of us. This process of course is not necessarily
conscious.
This view is substantiated by the opposite problem of feeble-
mindedness. Recent researches throw a new light on this problem and
the contrasting one of human genius. Mental defect and feeble-
mindedness are conceived essentially as retardation, arrest of
development, differing in degree so that the victim is either an
idiot, an imbecile, feeble-minded or a moron, according to the
relative period at which mental development ceases.
Scientific research into the functioning of the ductless glands and
their secretions throws a new light on this problem. Not long ago
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: to the slaughter, he led me to the hall, where I stood presently
alone, confronting assembled San Francisco, with no better
allies than a table, a glass of water, and a mass of manuscript
and typework, representing Harry Miller and myself. I read
the lecture; for I had lacked both time and will to get the trash
by heart--read it hurriedly, humbly, and with visible shame.
Now and then I would catch in the auditorium an eye of some
intelligence, now and then, in the manuscript, would stumble
on a richer vein of Harry Miller, and my heart would fail me,
and I gabbled. The audience yawned, it stirred uneasily, it
muttered, grumbled, and broke forth at last in articulate cries of
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