| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson: a match flash and the lamplight kindle in the windows. The station
was a wonderful fine place, coral built, with quite a wide
verandah, and the main room high and wide. My chests and cases had
been piled in, and made rather of a mess; and there, in the thick
of the confusion, stood Uma by the table, awaiting me. Her shadow
went all the way up behind her into the hollow of the iron roof;
she stood against it bright, the lamplight shining on her skin. I
stopped in the door, and she looked at me, not speaking, with eyes
that were eager and yet daunted; then she touched herself on the
bosom.
"Me - your wifie," she said. It had never taken me like that
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: in a specially; for he was the only beggar in the world who ever
gave me pleasure for my money. He had learned a school of manners
in the barracks and had the sense to cling to it, accosting
strangers with a regimental freedom, thanking patrons with a merely
regimental difference, sparing you at once the tragedy of his
position and the embarrassment of yours. There was not one hint
about him of the beggar's emphasis, the outburst of revolting
gratitude, the rant and cant, the "God bless you, Kind, Kind
gentleman," which insults the smallness of your alms by
disproportionate vehemence, which is so notably false, which would
be so unbearable if it were true. I am sometimes tempted to
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Astoria by Washington Irving: people on this side of the river were amply supplied with
provisions, none had been sent to his own forlorn and famishing
men on the opposite bank. He immediately caused a skin canoe to
be constructed, and called out to his men to fill their camp-
kettles with water and hang them over the fire, that no time
might be lost in cooking the meat the moment it should be
received. The river was so narrow, though deep, that everything
could be distinctly heard and seen across it. The kettles were
placed on the fire, and the water was boiling by the time the
canoe was completed. When all was ready, however, no one would
undertake to ferry the meat across. A vague and almost
|
