| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Vailima Letters by Robert Louis Stevenson: his bed, and ran for the door, with his head down not three
feet from the floor and his body all on a stretch forward,
like a striking snake: I say 'ran,' but this strange movement
was not swift. Lloyd and I mastered him and got him back in
bed. Soon there was another and more desperate attempt to
escape, in which Lloyd had his ring broken. Then we bound
him to the bed humanely with sheets, ropes, boards and
pillows. He lay there and sometimes talked, sometimes
whispered, sometimes wept like an angry child; his principal
word was 'Faamolemole' - 'Please' - and he kept telling us at
intervals that his family were calling him. During this
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tao Teh King by Lao-tze: states) under heaven.
2. (To illustrate from) the case of all females:--the female always
overcomes the male by her stillness. Stillness may be considered (a
sort of) abasement.
3. Thus it is that a great state, by condescending to small states,
gains them for itself; and that small states, by abasing themselves to
a great state, win it over to them. In the one case the abasement
leads to gaining adherents, in the other case to procuring favour.
4. The great state only wishes to unite men together and nourish them;
a small state only wishes to be received by, and to serve, the other.
Each gets what it desires, but the great state must learn to abase
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Moral Emblems by Robert Louis Stevenson: YOU ALSO SCAN YOUR LIFE'S HORIZON
FOR ALL THAT YOU CAN CLAP YOUR EYES ON.
A MARTIAL ELEGY FOR SOME LEAD SOLDIERS
For certain soldiers lately dead
Our reverent dirge shall here be said.
Them, when their martial leader called,
No dread preparative appalled;
But leaden-hearted, leaden-heeled,
I marked them steadfast in the field.
Death grimly sided with the foe,
And smote each leaden hero low.
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