| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson: his hand hurt, an old woman and two children had been slain; and
the captain improved the occasion by poulticing the hand, and
taunting both sides upon so wretched an affair. It is true these
wars were often merely formal - comparable with duels to the first
blood. Captain Hart visited a bay where such a war was being
carried on between two brothers, one of whom had been thought
wanting in civility to the guests of the other. About one-half of
the population served day about on alternate sides, so as to be
well with each when the inevitable peace should follow. The forts
of the belligerents were over against each other, and close by.
Pigs were cooking. Well-oiled braves, with well-oiled muskets,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Three Taverns by Edwin Arlington Robinson: And if at last I lied my starving soul away to nothing,
Are you sure you might not miss it? Have you come to such a pass
That you would have me longer in your arms if you discovered
That I made you into someone else. . . . Oh! . . . Well, there are
worse ways.
But why aim it at my feet -- unless you fear you may be sorry. . . .
There are many days ahead of you."
"I do not see those days."
"I can see them. Granted even I am wrong, there are the children.
And are they to praise their father for his insight if we die?
Do you hear them? Do you hear them overhead -- the children -- singing?
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: became proverbial in Alencon as applied to ridiculous failures. Surely
the sarcastic mood must be an imperative need in France, that so
excellent a woman should excite the laughter of Alencon. Not only did
she receive the whole society of the place at her house, not only was
she charitable, pious, incapable of saying an unkind thing, but she
was fully in accord with the spirit of the place and the habits and
customs of the inhabitants, who liked her as the symbol of their
lives; she was absolutely inlaid into the ways of the provinces; she
had never quitted them; she imbibed all their prejudices; she espoused
all their interests; she adored them.
In spite of her income of eighteen thousand francs from landed
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