| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: to go home again and see the corn spring and ripen, and be cut
down at last, and brought home with gladness. And yet the
future of this harvest, the continuance of drought or the
coming of rain unseasonably, touch him as sensibly as ever.
For he has long been used to wait with interest the issue of
events in which his own concern was nothing; and to be joyful
in a plenty, and sorrowful for a famine, that did not increase
or diminish, by one half loaf, the equable sufficiency of his
own supply. Thus there remain unaltered all the disinterested
hopes for mankind and a better future which have been the
solace and inspiration of his life. These he has set beyond
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Child of Storm by H. Rider Haggard: out his strength, he squeezed his brother into the reeds of the fence,
and won through a foot or so in front of him.
"You grow too fat, my brother," I heard Cetewayo say, and saw him scowl
as he spoke. "If I had held an assegai in my hand you would have been
cut."
"I know it, my brother," answered Umbelazi, with a good-humoured laugh,
"but I knew also that none may appear before the King armed. Had it
been otherwise, I would rather have followed after you."
Now, at this hint of Umbelazi's, that he would not trust his brother
behind his back with a spear, although it seemed to be conveyed in jest,
I saw Panda shift uneasily on his seat, while Cetewayo scowled even more
Child of Storm |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Dream Life and Real Life by Olive Schreiner: "Ha! what is that?" he said.
A Bushman is like a dog: his ear is so fine he knows a jackal's tread from
a wild dog's.
"I heard nothing," said the navvy.
"I heard," said the Hottentot; "but it was only a cony on the rocks."
"No cony, no cony," said the Bushman; "see, what is that there moving in
the shade round the point?"
"Nothing, you idiot!" said the navvy. "Finish your meat; we must start
now."
There were two roads to the homestead. One went along the open plain, and
was by far the shortest; but you might be seen half a mile off. The other
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