| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: on royal prerogative, and to obtain possession of the lady
by force of arms; and accordingly collected a body of troops,
and marched upon Arlingford castle. A letter, conveyed as before
on the point of a blunt arrow, announced his approach to Matilda:
and lord Fitzwater had just time to assemble his retainers,
collect a hasty supply of provision, raise the draw-bridge, and drop
the portcullis, when the castle was surrounded by the enemy.
The little fat friar, who during the confusion was asleep in the buttery,
found himself, on awaking, inclosed in the besieged castle,
and dolefully bewailed his evil chance.
CHAPTER X
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Vailima Letters by Robert Louis Stevenson: but that's not the way I write; the whole tale is implied; I
never use an effect, when I can help it, unless it prepares
the effects that are to follow; that's what a story consists
in. To make another end, that is to make the beginning all
wrong. The denouement of a long story is nothing; it is just
a 'full close,' which you may approach and accompany as you
please - it is a coda, not an essential member in the rhythm;
but the body and end of a short story is bone of the bone and
blood of the blood of the beginning. Well, I shall end by
finishing it against my judgment; that fragment is my
Delilah. Golly, it's good. I am not shining by modesty; but
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Secret Places of the Heart by H. G. Wells: something of the self beyond your self. But it is a partial
and a shaded light as yet; a little area about you it makes
clear, the rest is still the old darkness--of millions of
intense and narrow animal generations. . . . You are like
someone who awakens out of an immemorial sleep to find
himself in a vast chamber, in a great and ancient house, a
great and ancient house high amidst frozen and lifeless
mountains--in a sunless universe. You are not alone in it.
You are not lord of all you survey. Your leadership is
disputed. The darkness even of the room you are in is full of
ancient and discarded but quite unsubjugated powers and
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