| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: traditions.'
'Yes,' said Mr. Thomson. Henry Graeme Durie, the last lord,
died in 1820; his sister, the Honourable Miss Katherine
Durie, in '27; so much I know; and by what I have been going
over the last few days, they were what you say, decent, quiet
people and not rich. To say truth, it was a letter of my
lord's that put me on the search for the packet we are going
to open this evening. Some papers could not be found; and he
wrote to Jack M'Brair suggesting they might be among those
sealed up by a Mr. Mackellar. M'Brair answered, that the
papers in question were all in Mackellar's own hand, all (as
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Poems of Goethe, Bowring, Tr. by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: That most terrible fire occurr'd which burnt down the borough,
Twenty years ago now; the day, like to-day, was a Sunday,
Hot and dry was the weather, and little available water.
All the inhabitants, clothed in their festival garments, were walking,
Scatter'd about in the inns and the mills of the neighbouring hamlets.
At one end of the town the fire broke out, and the flames ran
Hastily all through the streets, impell'd by the draught they created.
And the barns were consumed, where all the rich harvest was gather'd
And all the streets as far as the market; the dwelling house also
Of my father hard by was destroy'd, as likewise was this one.
Little indeed could we save; I sat the sorrowful night through
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Mother by Owen Wister: brown old headstones with Beverly upon them. 'Died 1750; died 1767,'
continued Ethel, reading the names and inscriptions. 'I think one doesn't
mind the idea of lying in such a place as this.'"
"Some of the young people in the pew now came along the path. 'The
grandchildren,' said Ethel. 'She is probably too old to come to church.
Or she is in Europe.'"
"The young people had brought a basket with flowers from their place, and
now laid them over several of the grassy mounds. 'Give me some of yours,'
said one to the other, presently; 'I've not enough for grandmother's.'"
"Ethel took me rather sharply by the arm. 'Did you hear that?' she asked."
"'It can't be she, you know,' said I. 'He would have come back from
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