| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: or pain, to call for strength to bear what must be borne.
Vailima lay up some three miles of continual rise from Apia, and
more than half that distance from the nearest village. It was a
long way for a tired man to walk down every evening with the sole
purpose of joining in family worship; and the road through the bush
was dark, and, to the Samoan imagination, beset with supernatural
terrors. Wherefore, as soon as our household had fallen into a
regular routine, and the bonds of Samoan family life began to draw
us more closely together, Tusitala felt the necessity of including
our retainers in our evening devotions. I suppose ours was the
only white man's family in all Samoa, except those of the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Camille by Alexandre Dumas: leave me, I am sure, for if you were at Paris, you would not
leave my bedside.
December 25.
My doctor tells me I must not write every day. And indeed my
memories only increase my fever, but yesterday I received a
letter which did me good, more because of what it said than by
the material help which it contained. I can write to you, then,
to-day. This letter is from your father, and this is what it
says:
"MADAME: I have just learned that you are ill. If I were at Paris
I would come and ask after you myself; if my son were here I
Camille |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair: afraid of the beating of her own heart, fronting the blood-red eyes
of the old primeval terror of life. Once she cried aloud, and woke
Jurgis, who was tired and cross. After that she learned to weep
silently--their moods so seldom came together now! It was as if
their hopes were buried in separate graves.
Jurgis, being a man, had troubles of his own. There was another
specter following him. He had never spoken of it, nor would he allow
any one else to speak of it--he had never acknowledged its existence
to himself. Yet the battle with it took all the manhood that he had--
and once or twice, alas, a little more. Jurgis had discovered drink.
He was working in the steaming pit of hell; day after day, week after
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