| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson: going the one way, when I had already gone about ship and was
sheering off the other. Like a fool I had come out, doing my five
knots; like a fool I went back again. It must have been the
funniest thing to see, and what knocked me silly, this time no one
laughed; only one old woman gave a kind of pious moan, the way you
have heard Dissenters in their chapels at the sermon.
"I never saw such fools of Kanakas as your people here," I said
once to Uma, glancing out of the window at the starers.
"Savvy nothing," says Uma, with a kind of disgusted air that she
was good at.
And that was all the talk we had upon the matter, for I was put
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: The central bureau of nerves, what in some moods we call Ourselves,
enjoyed its holiday without disturbance, like a Government Office.
The great wheels of intelligence turned idly in the head, like fly-
wheels, grinding no grist. I have gone on for half an hour at a
time, counting my strokes and forgetting the hundreds. I flatter
myself the beasts that perish could not underbid that, as a low
form of consciousness. And what a pleasure it was! What a hearty,
tolerant temper did it bring about! There is nothing captious
about a man who has attained to this, the one possible apotheosis
in life, the Apotheosis of Stupidity; and he begins to feel
dignified and longaevous like a tree.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson: I must explain to you the action of my paint. A broken bone is a
mighty small affair at the worst of it; and it belongs to a class
of accident to which my paint is quite inapplicable. Sin, my dear
young friend, sin is the sole calamity that a wise man should
apprehend; it is against sin that I have fitted you out; and when
you come to be tempted, you will give me news of my paint."
"Oh!" said the young man, "I did not understand that, and it seems
rather disappointing. But I have no doubt all is for the best; and
in the meanwhile, I shall be obliged to you if you will set my
leg."
"That is none of my business," said the physician; "but if your
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