| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: not understand." In this wise and graceful attitude he did justice
to himself and others, reposed unshaken in his old beliefs, and
recognised their limits without anger or alarm. His last recorded
remark, on the last night of his life, was after he had been
arguing against Calvinism with his minister and was interrupted by
an intolerable pang. "After all," he said, "of all the 'isms, I
know none so bad as rheumatism." My own last sight of him was some
time before, when we dined together at an inn; he had been on
circuit, for he stuck to his duties like a chief part of his
existence; and I remember it as the only occasion on which he ever
soiled his lips with slang - a thing he loathed. We were both
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Vendetta by Honore de Balzac: awes, it inspires. There is I know not what great power in the
thought: all sleep, I wake."
"Oh, my Ginevra," he cried, "it is not to-night alone I feel how
delicately moulded is your soul. But see, the dawn is shining,--come
and sleep."
"Yes," replied Ginevra, "if I do not sleep alone. I suffered too much
that night I first discovered that you were waking while I slept."
The courage with which these two young people fought with misery
received for a while its due reward; but an event which usually crowns
the happiness of a household to them proved fatal. Ginevra had a son,
who was, to use the popular expression, "as beautiful as the day." The
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: the gilded rule. Brother Peters,' says Bill, 'you'd better choose a
slice of this embalmed currency. You're welcome.'
"I told Bill Bassett once more to put his money in his pocket. I never
had the respect for burglary that some people have. I always gave
something for the money I took, even if it was only some little trifle
for a souvenir to remind 'em not to get caught again.
"And then Alfred E. Ricks grovels at Bill's feet again, and bids us
adieu. He says he will have a team at a farmhouse, and drive to the
station below, and take the train for Denver. It salubrified the
atmosphere when that lamentable boll-worm took his departure. He was a
disgrace to every non-industrial profession in the country. With all
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