| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: criminal lawyer would believe him.
"That's the trouble--Ascham's not a criminal lawyer. And then
he's a friend. What a fool I was to talk to a friend! Even if
he did believe me, he'd never let me see it--his instinct would
be to cover the whole thing up. . . But in that case--if he DID
believe me--he might think it a kindness to get me shut up in an
asylum. . ." Granice began to tremble again. "Good heaven! If
he should bring in an expert--one of those damned alienists!
Ascham and Pettilow can do anything--their word always goes. If
Ascham drops a hint that I'd better be shut up, I'll be in a
strait-jacket by to-morrow! And he'd do it from the kindest
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: letters being things of youth which Fleeming had at length
outgrown. But one or two more fragments from his correspondence
may be taken, and first this brief sketch of the laying of the
Norderney cable; mainly interesting as showing under what defects
of strength and in what extremities of pain, this cheerful man must
at times continue to go about his work.
'I slept on board 29th September having arranged everything to
start by daybreak from where we lay in the roads: but at daybreak
a heavy mist hung over us so that nothing of land or water could be
seen. At midday it lifted suddenly and away we went with perfect
weather, but could not find the buoys Forde left, that evening. I
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: Phaedrus, I say of Love that he is the fairest and best in himself, and the
cause of what is fairest and best in all other things. And there comes
into my mind a line of poetry in which he is said to be the god who
'Gives peace on earth and calms the stormy deep,
Who stills the winds and bids the sufferer sleep.'
This is he who empties men of disaffection and fills them with affection,
who makes them to meet together at banquets such as these: in sacrifices,
feasts, dances, he is our lord--who sends courtesy and sends away
discourtesy, who gives kindness ever and never gives unkindness; the friend
of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the gods; desired by
those who have no part in him, and precious to those who have the better
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