| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: sort of colour - red, like fire; blue, like steel; green,
like the tracks of sunset; and so sharply did each stand
forth in its own lustre that there was no appearance of that
flat, star-spangled arch we know so well in pictures, but all
the hollow of heaven was one chaos of contesting luminaries -
a hurry-burly of stars. Against this the hills and rugged
treetops stood out redly dark.
As we continued to advance, the lesser lights and milky ways
first grew pale, and then vanished; the countless hosts of
heaven dwindled in number by successive millions; those that
still shone had tempered their exceeding brightness and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Lone Star Ranger by Zane Grey: room was mingling with little dull thuds of falling dirt. The
adobe wall, merely dried mud, was crumbling. Duane distinctly
felt a tremor pass through it. Then the blood gushed back to
his heart.
"What in the hell!" exclaimed Longstreth.
"I smell dust," said Lawson, sharply.
That was the signal for Duane to drop down from his perch, yet
despite his care he made a noise.
"Did you hear a step?" queried Longstreth.
No one answered. But a heavy piece of the adobe wall fell with
a thud. Duane heard it crack, felt it shake.
The Lone Star Ranger |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: what nobler testimony can be adduced than this one fact? To the
commemorative list of famous ancestry is added to-day the name[1]
Agesilaus as holding this or that numerical descent from Heracles, and
these ancestors no private persons, but kings sprung from the loins of
kings. Nor is it open to the gainsayer to contend that they were kings
indeed but of some chance city. Not so, but even as their family holds
highest honour in their fatherland, so too is their city the most
glorious in Hellas, whereby they hold, not primacy over the second
best, but among leaders they have leadership.
[1] Or, "even to-day, in the proud bead-roll of his ancestry he stands
commemorated, in numerical descent from Heracles."
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