| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson: appalling nickname, and he had earned it well. Again and again, at
the command of Nakaeia, he had surrounded houses in the dead of
night, cut down the mosquito bars and butchered families. Here was
the hand of iron; here was Nakaeia REDUX. He came, summoned from
the tributary rule of Little Makin: he was installed, he proved a
puppet and a trembler, the unwieldy shuttlecock of orators; and the
reader has seen the remains of him in his summer parlour under the
name of Tebureimoa.
The change in the man's character was much commented on in the
island, and variously explained by opium and Christianity. To my
eyes, there seemed no change at all, rather an extreme consistency.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: the day is still the most inspiriting, yet day's departure,
also, and the return of night refresh, renew, and quiet us;
and in the pastures of the dusk we stand, like cattle,
exulting in the absence of the load.
Our nights wore never cold, and they were always still, but
for one remarkable exception. Regularly, about nine o'clock,
a warm wind sprang up, and blew for ten minutes, or maybe a
quarter of an hour, right down the canyon, fanning it well
out, airing it as a mother airs the night nursery before the
children sleep. As far as I could judge, in the clear
darkness of the night, this wind was purely local: perhaps
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: moored. The other door opened upon the courtyard of the inn. This
courtyard was surrounded by very high walls and was full, for the time
being, of cattle and horses, the stables being occupied by human
beings. The great gate leading into this courtyard had been so
carefully barricaded that to save time the landlord had brought the
merchant and sailors into the public room through the door opening on
the roadway. After having opened the window, as requested by Prosper
Magnan, he closed this door, slipped the iron bars into their places
and ran the bolts. The landlord's room, where the two young surgeons
were to sleep, adjoined the public room, and was separated by a
somewhat thin partition from the kitchen, where the landlord and his
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