| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson: spirit goes abroad in spite of watches. Indeed, it is not the
purpose of the vigils to prevent these wanderings; only to mollify
by polite attention the inveterate malignity of the dead. Neglect
(it is supposed) may irritate and thus invite his visits, and the
aged and weakly sometimes balance risks and stay at home. Observe,
it is the dead man's kindred and next friends who thus deprecate
his fury with nocturnal watchings. Even the placatory vigil is
held perilous, except in company, and a boy was pointed out to me
in Rotoava, because he had watched alone by his own father. Not
the ties of the dead, nor yet their proved character, affect the
issue. A late Resident, who died in Fakarava of sunstroke, was
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: A sudden, tense silence fell upon the assembled chiefs. Slowly
the blood receded from the sinister face of O-Tar, Jeddak of
Manator, leaving him a sickly purple in his wrath. His eyes
narrowed to two thin slits, his lips were compressed to a
bloodless line of malevolence. For a long moment there was no
sound in the throne room of the palace at Manator. Then the
jeddak turned toward U-Dor.
"Take her away," he said in a level voice that belied his
appearance of rage. "Take her away, and at the next games let the
prisoners and the common warriors play at Jetan for her."
"And this?" asked U-Dor, pointing at Ghek.
The Chessmen of Mars |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: and knights who consumed in one night's entertainment some five years'
revenue of their entertainer, and in a guard of fifteen hundred
foreign soldiers, whom he considered indispensable to the exercise
of a vigour beyond the law in maintaining wholesome discipline over
the refractory English. The ignorant impatience of the swinish multitude
with these fruits of good living, brought forth by one of the meek who
had inherited the earth, displayed itself in a general ferment, of which
Prince John took advantage to make the experiment of getting possession
of his brother's crown in his absence. He began by calling at Reading
a council of barons, whose aspect induced the holy bishop to disguise himself
(some say as an old woman, which, in the twelfth century, perhaps might
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