| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: drinking the tank-water, and never hearing the sound of a running
stream--whirling, too, forever, in all the bustle and intrigue of a
great commercial and literary city. Refreshing indeed it must have been
to them to hear of those simple joys and simple sorrows of the Sicilian
shepherd, in a land where toil was but exercise, and mere existence was
enjoyment. To them, and to us also. I believe Theocritus is one of the
poets who will never die. He sees men and things, in his own light way,
truly; and he describes them simply, honestly, with little careless
touches of pathos and humour, while he floods his whole scene with that
gorgeous Sicilian air, like one of Titian's pictures; with still
sunshine, whispering pines, the lizard sleeping on the wall, and the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Ruling Passion by Henry van Dyke: as well as a sin. At last--it was already winter, the day before
Christmas--the cure made up his mind that he would put forth one
more great effort.
"Look you, my son," he said to Prosper, "I am going this afternoon
to Raoul Vaillantcoeur to make the reconciliation. You shall give
me a word to carry to him. He shall hear it this time, I promise
you. Shall I tell him what you have done for him, how you have
cared for him?"
"No, never," said Prosper; "you shall not take that word from me.
It is nothing. It will make worse trouble. I will never send it."
"What then?" said the priest. "Shall I tell him that you forgive
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: singing of hymns. The omission of this sacred duty would indicate,
not only a lack of religious training in the house chief, but a
shameless disregard of all that is reputable in Samoan social life.
No doubt, to many, the evening service is no more than a duty
fulfilled. The child who says his prayer at his mother's knee can
have no real conception of the meaning of the words he lisps so
readily, yet he goes to his little bed with a sense of heavenly
protection that he would miss were the prayer forgotten. The
average Samoan is but a larger child in most things, and would lay
an uneasy head on his wooden pillow if he had not joined, even
perfunctorily, in the evening service. With my husband, prayer,
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