| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: and then higher, I pursued my impotent and empty flight. Even when
the strong arm of Bob had checked my shoulders, my heels continued
their ascent; so that I blew out sideways like an autumn leaf, and
must be hauled in, hand over hand, as sailors haul in the slack of
a sail, and propped upon my feet again like an intoxicated sparrow.
Yet a little higher on the foundation, and we began to be affected
by the bottom of the swell, running there like a strong breeze of
wind. Or so I must suppose; for, safe in my cushion of air, I was
conscious of no impact; only swayed idly like a weed, and was now
borne helplessly abroad, and now swiftly - and yet with dream-like
gentleness - impelled against my guide. So does a child's balloon
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson: delays, and seemed upon the point of a retreat from his
engagements; nothing but peril appeared to environ the poor
fugitives, and for some time we drowned our concern in a very
irregular course of living.
This, too, proved to be fortunate; and it's one of the remarks that
fall to be made upon our escape, how providentially our steps were
conducted to the very end. What a humiliation to the dignity of
man! My philosophy, the extraordinary genius of Ballantrae, our
valour, in which I grant that we were equal - all these might have
proved insufficient without the Divine blessing on our efforts.
And how true it is, as the Church tells us, that the Truths of
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad: the old man, whizzed it out of the scabbard, and thrust the point into
the earth. Upon the thin, upright blade the silver hilt, released,
swayed before him like something alive. He stepped back a pace, and in
a deadened tone spoke fiercely to the vibrating steel: "If there is
virtue in the fire, in the iron, in the hand that forged thee, in the
words spoken over thee, in the desire of my heart, and in the wisdom
of thy makers,--then we shall be victorious together!" He drew it out,
looked along the edge. "Take," he said over his shoulder to the old
sword-bearer. The other, unmoved on his hams, wiped the point with a
corner of his sarong, and returning the weapon to its scabbard, sat
nursing it on his knees without a single look upwards. Karain,
Tales of Unrest |
