| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Footnote to History by Robert Louis Stevenson: client, Puaauli, was certainly nonsuited. But in that intricate
affair who lost the money? The German firm. And who got the land?
Other natives. To twist such a decision into evidence, either of a
prejudice against Samoans or a partiality to whites, is to keep one
eye shut and have the other bandaged.
And lastly, one word as to the future. Laupepa and Mataafa stand
over against each other, rivals with no third competitor. They may
be said to hold the great name of Malietoa in commission; each has
borne the style, each exercised the authority, of a Samoan king;
one is secure of the small but compact and fervent following of the
Catholics, the other has the sympathies of a large part of the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: have killed a man and licenses creatures who despatch, medically
speaking, a dozen young folks in a season. Morality is powerless
against a dozen vices which destroy society and which nothing can
punish.--Another cup!--Upon my word of honor! man is a jester dancing
upon a precipice. They talk to us about the immorality of the
/Liaisons Dangereuses/, and any other book you like with a vulgar
reputation; but there exists a book, horrible, filthy, fearful,
corrupting, which is always open and will never be shut, the great
book of the world; not to mention another book, a thousand times more
dangerous, which is composed of all that men whisper into each other's
ears, or women murmur behind their fans, of an evening in society."
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: to lift lazily from the plain, the Other Wise Man was in the
saddle, riding swiftly along the high-road, which skirted the
base of Mount Orontes, westward.
How close, how intimate is the comradeship between a man
and his favourite horse on a long journey. It is a silent,
comprehensive friendship, an intercourse beyond the need of
words.
They drink at the same way-side springs, and sleep under
the same guardian stars. They are conscious together of the
subduing spell of nightfall and the quickening joy of
daybreak. The master shares his evening meal with his hungry
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