| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: good order; learning that a man can be just as happy in a log
shanty as in a brownstone mansion, and that the very best pleasures
are those that do not leave a bad taste in the mouth. And in all
this the governor was his best teacher and his closest comrade.
Dear governor, you have gone out of the wilderness now, and your
steps will be no more beside these remembered little rivers--no
more, forever and forever. You will not come in sight around any
bend of this clear Swiftwater stream where you made your last cast;
your cheery voice will never again ring out through the deepening
twilight where you are lingering for your disciple to catch up with
you; he will never again hear you call: "Hallo, my boy! What luck?
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson: could fail to put one thing with another, and connect me with the
bill. So it was, at least. Other folk keep a secret among two
or three near friends, and somehow it leaks out; but among these
clansmen, it is told to a whole countryside, and they will keep
it for a century.
There was but one thing happened worth narrating; and that is the
visit I had of Robin Oig, one of the sons of the notorious Rob
Roy. He was sought upon all sides on a charge of carrying a
young woman from Balfron and marrying her (as was alleged) by
force; yet he stepped about Balquhidder like a gentleman in his
own walled policy. It was he who had shot James Maclaren at the
Kidnapped |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: spiritual entity, making us personal and individual, created for
our service, and entering into us for our joy. It is something
that has dwelt in fearful places, and in ancient sepulchres has
made its abode. It is sick with many maladies, and has memories of
curious sins. It is wiser than we are, and its wisdom is bitter.
It fills us with impossible desires, and makes us follow what we
know we cannot gain. One thing, however, Ernest, it can do for us.
It can lead us away from surroundings whose beauty is dimmed to us
by the mist of familiarity, or whose ignoble ugliness and sordid
claims are marring the perfection of our development. It can help
us to leave the age in which we were born, and to pass into other
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