| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: dog, with one eye ever on the audience, has been wheedled into
slavery, and praised and patted into the renunciation of his
nature. Once he ceased hunting and became man's plate-licker, the
Rubicon was crossed. Thenceforth he was a gentleman of leisure;
and except the few whom we keep working, the whole race grew more
and more self-conscious, mannered and affected. The number of
things that a small dog does naturally is strangely small.
Enjoying better spirits and not crushed under material cares, he is
far more theatrical than average man. His whole life, if he be a
dog of any pretension to gallantry, is spent in a vain show, and in
the hot pursuit of admiration. Take out your puppy for a walk, and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Malbone: An Oldport Romance by Thomas Wentworth Higginson: closets that I had nailed up, you know; but that is nothing; of
course she does. Rats. What I hear at night is the creaking
of stairs, when I know that nobody ought to be stirring. If you
observe, you will hear it too. At least, I should think you
would, only that somehow everything always seems to stop, when
it is necessary to prove that I am foolish."
The girls had no especial engagement that evening, and so got
into a great excitement on the stairway over Aunt Jane's
solicitudes. They convinced themselves that they heard all
sorts of things,--footfalls on successive steps, the creak of a
plank, the brushing of an arm against a wall, the jar of some
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The King of the Golden River by John Ruskin: went away pouring maledictions on the Black Brothers. They asked
what they liked and got it, except from the poor people, who could
only beg, and several of whom were starved at their very door
without the slightest regard or notice.
It was drawing towards winter, and very cold weather, when
one day the two elder brothers had gone out, with their usual
warning to little Gluck, who was left to mind the roast, that he
was to let nobody in and give nothing out. Gluck sat down quite
close to the fire, for it was raining very hard and the kitchen
walls were by no means dry or comfortable-looking. He turned and
turned, and the roast got nice and brown. "What a pity," thought
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