| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: her wharves to crumble to ruin while their ventures go to swell,
needlessly and imperceptibly, the mighty flood of commerce at New
York or Boston. On some such morning, when three or four vessels
happen to have arrived at once usually from Africa or South
America -- or to be on the verge of their departure thitherward,
there is a sound of frequent feet passing briskly up and down the
granite steps. Here, before his own wife has greeted him, you
may greet the sea-flushed ship-
The Scarlet Letter |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson: mockery of General Cope's defeat at Preston Pans:
"Hey, Johnnie Cope, are ye waukin' yet?
And are your drums a-beatin' yet?"
And it came in my mind that Alan, on the day of that battle, had
been engaged upon the royal side.
"Why do ye take that air, Mr. Stewart?" said I. "Is that to
remind me you have been beaten on both sides?"
The air stopped on Alan's lips. "David!" said he.
"But it's time these manners ceased," I continued; "and I mean
you shall henceforth speak civilly of my King and my good friends
the Campbells."
Kidnapped |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson: Otto rode away, chuckling. This talk with Fritz had vastly
entertained him; nor was he altogether discontented with his bearing
at the farm; men, he was able to tell himself, had behaved worse
under smaller provocation. And, to harmonise all, the road and the
April air were both delightful to his soul.
Up and down, and to and fro, ever mounting through the wooded
foothills, the broad white high-road wound onward into Grunewald.
On either hand the pines stood coolly rooted - green moss
prospering, springs welling forth between their knuckled spurs; and
though some were broad and stalwart, and others spiry and slender,
yet all stood firm in the same attitude and with the same
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