| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: 'And then,' she resumed, 'if you are to try your fortune, why
not evenly?'
'Nay,' returned Mr. Archer with a smile, 'no man can put
complete reliance in blind fate; he must still cog the dice.'
By this time he had got upon the rock beside the upper fall,
and, bidding her look out, dropped a piece of rush into the
middle of the intake. The rusty fragment was sucked at once
over the fall, came up again far on the right hand, leaned
ever more and more in the same direction, and disappeared
under the hanging grasses on the castle side.
'One,' said Mr. Archer, 'one for standing still.'
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad: square, the deadened roll of wheels and the splashy trotting of a
horse. He heard a groan also--very distinct--in the room--close to
his ear.
He thought with alarm: "I must have made that noise myself;" and at
the same instant the woman left the door, stepped firmly across the
floor before him, and sat down in a chair. He knew that step. There
was no doubt about it. She had come back! And he very nearly said
aloud "Of course!"--such was his sudden and masterful perception of
the indestructible character of her being. Nothing could destroy her--
and nothing but his own destruction could keep her away. She was the
incarnation of all the short moments which every man spares out of his
Tales of Unrest |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson: sell this bottle very cheap."
"I have told you already why I sigh," said the man. "It is because
I fear my health is breaking up; and, as you said yourself, to die
and go to the devil is a pity for anyone. As for why I sell so
cheap, I must explain to you there is a peculiarity about the
bottle. Long ago, when the devil brought it first upon earth, it
was extremely expensive, and was sold first of all to Prester John
for many millions of dollars; but it cannot be sold at all, unless
sold at a loss. If you sell it for as much as you paid for it,
back it comes to you again like a homing pigeon. It follows that
the price has kept falling in these centuries, and the bottle is
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