| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Human Drift by Jack London: it came to steering "full-and-by" and "close-and-by," I could beat
the average of my shipmates, because that was the very way I had
always sailed. Inside fifteen minutes I could box the compass
around and back again. And there was little else to learn during
that seven-months' cruise, except fancy rope-sailorising, such as
the more complicated lanyard knots and the making of various kinds
of sennit and rope-mats. The point of all of which is that it is
by means of small-boat sailing that the real sailor is best
schooled.
And if a man is a born sailor, and has gone to the school of the
sea, never in all his life can he get away from the sea again.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: from my berth, watched him out of sight.
"It was then I got the idea of changing berths with him, getting
into his clothes, and leaving the train. I give you my word I had
no idea of throwing suspicion on him."
Alison looked scornfully incredulous, but I felt that the man was
telling the truth.
"I changed the numbers of the berths, and it worked well. I got
into the other man's berth, and he came back to mine. The rest was
easy. I dressed in his clothes - luckily, they fitted - and jumped
the train not far from Baltimore, just before the wreck."
"There is something else you must clear up," I said. "Why did you
The Man in Lower Ten |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: pretty house in an orange garden at the angle of a bay, and
decided that this should be his Happy Valley. Astrea Redux;
childhood was to come again! The idea has an air of simple
nobility to me, not unworthy of Cincinnatus. And yet, as the
reader has probably anticipated, it is never likely to be
carried into effect. There was a worm i' the bud, a fatal
error in the premises. Childhood must pass away, and then
youth, as surely as age approaches. The true wisdom is to be
always seasonable, and to change with a good grace in changing
circumstances. To love playthings well as a child, to lead an
adventurous and honourable youth, and to settle when the time
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