| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: other, with almost passionate emphasis, what so-and-so can see
in that woman, or such-an-one in that man? I am sure,
gentlemen, I cannot tell you. For my part, I cannot think
what the women mean. It might be very well, if the Apollo
Belvedere should suddenly glow all over into life, and step
forward from the pedestal with that godlike air of his. But
of the misbegotten changelings who call themselves men, and
prate intolerably over dinner-tables, I never saw one who
seemed worthy to inspire love - no, nor read of any, except
Leonardo da Vinci, and perhaps Goethe in his youth. About
women I entertain a somewhat different opinion; but there, I
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Ebb-Tide by Stevenson & Osbourne: stood full of water by the door, a half cocoanut shell beside it
for a drinking cup; and on some ragged ends of mat Huish sprawled
asleep, his mouth open, his face deathly. The glow of the tropic
afternoon, the green of sunbright foliage, stared into that shady
place through door and window; and Herrick, pacing to and fro
on the coral floor, sometimes paused and laved his face and
neck with tepid water from the bucket. His long arrears of
suffering, the night's vigil, the insults of the morning, and the
harrowing business of the letter, had strung him to that point
when pain is almost pleasure, time shrinks to a mere point, and
death and life appear indifferent. To and fro he paced like a
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: so gross, so cold-blooded, and so black-hearted a villain, that I had a
mind to have cast my brief upon the table. I was then boiling against
the man with even a more tropical temperature than I had been boiling
for him. But I said to myself: `No, you have taken up his case; and
because you have changed your mind it must not be suffered to let drop.
All that rich tide of eloquence that you prepared last night with so
much enthusiasm is out of place, and yet you must not desert him, you
must say something.' So I said something, and I got him off. It made
my reputation. But an experience of that kind is formative. A man must
not bring his passions to the bar - or to the bench," he added.
The story had slightly rekindled Archie's interest. "I could never
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