| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: been cruising now hard upon three years, and thou hast not raised a
whale yet. Whales are scarce as hen's teeth whenever thou art up
here." Perhaps they were; or perhaps there might have been shoals of
them in the far horizon; but lulled into such an opium-like
listlessness of vacant, unconscious reverie is this absent-minded
youth by the blending cadence of waves with thoughts, that at last he
loses his identity; takes the mystic ocean at his feet for the
visible image of that deep, blue, bottomless soul, pervading mankind
and nature; and every strange, half-seen, gliding, beautiful thing
that eludes him; every dimly-discovered, uprising fin of some
undiscernible form, seems to him the embodiment of those elusive
Moby Dick |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: and for their children; in a word, to arise and become men once
more.
And, what is more, men had to punish--to avenge. Those are fearful
words. But there is, in this God-guided universe, a law of
retribution, which will find men out, whether men choose to find it
out or not; a law of retribution; of vengeance inflicted justly,
though not necessarily by just men. The public executioner was
seldom a very estimable personage, at least under the old Regime;
and those who have been the scourges of God have been, in general,
mere scourges, and nothing better; smiting blindly, rashly,
confusedly; confounding too often the innocent with the guilty, till
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Footnote to History by Robert Louis Stevenson: foreigners from the jurisdiction of their consuls. The protest of
your English colleague is grounded. In disputes which may arise
from this cause you will find yourself in the wrong. The demand
formulated by you, as to the assumption of the government of Samoa
by Germany, lay outside of your instructions and of our design.
Take it immediately back. If your telegram is here rightly
understood, I cannot call your conduct good." It must be a hard
heart that does not sympathise with Knappe in the hour when he
received this document. Yet it may be said that his troubles were
still in the beginning. Men had contended against him, and he had
not prevailed; he was now to be at war with the elements, and find
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