| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: of his own, indeed, at home; few men were more beloved in
Edinburgh, where he breathed an air that pleased him; and wherever
he went, in railway carriages or hotel smoking-rooms, his strange,
humorous vein of talk, and his transparent honesty, raised him up
friends and admirers. But to the general public and the world of
London, except about the parliamentary committee-rooms, he remained
unknown. All the time, his lights were in every part of the world,
guiding the mariner; his firm were consulting engineers to the
Indian, the New Zealand, and the Japanese Lighthouse Boards, so
that Edinburgh was a world centre for that branch of applied
science; in Germany, he had been called "the Nestor of lighthouse
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Market-Place by Harold Frederic: is only temporary. As soon as the pressure is released,
the human atoms rearrange themselves as they were before,
and the old conditions return. I think the only force which
really makes any permanent difference is character--and yet
about even that I am not sure. The best man I have ever
known--and in many respects the ablest--devoted untold
energy and labour, and much money, too, to the service
of a few thousand people in Somerset, on land of his own,
upon a theory wonderfully elaborated and worked out.
Perhaps you have heard of Emanuel Torr and his colony,
his System?"
The Market-Place |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: and with this letter in your hand for consultation, to drive
straight to my house. Poole, my butler, has his orders; you will
find him waiting your arrival with a locksmith. The door of my
cabinet is then to be forced: and you are to go in alone; to open
the glazed press (letter E) on the left hand, breaking the lock if
it be shut; and to draw out, with all its contents as they stand,
the fourth drawer from the top or (which is the same thing) the
third from the bottom. In my extreme distress of mind, I have a
morbid fear of misdirecting you; but even if I am in error, you
may know the right drawer by its contents: some powders, a phial
and a paper book. This drawer I beg of you to carry back with you
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
