| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: You can keep no men long, nor Scotchmen at all, off moral or
theological discussion. These are to all the world what law is to
lawyers; they are everybody's technicalities; the medium through
which all consider life, and the dialect in which they express
their judgments. I knew three young men who walked together daily
for some two months in a solemn and beautiful forest and in
cloudless summer weather; daily they talked with unabated zest, and
yet scarce wandered that whole time beyond two subjects - theology
and love. And perhaps neither a court of love nor an assembly of
divines would have granted their premisses or welcomed their
conclusions.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: equal swiftness with the sun, but in an opposite direction; and this is the
reason why the sun and Hermes and Lucifer overtake and are overtaken by
each other. To enumerate the places which he assigned to the other stars,
and to give all the reasons why he assigned them, although a secondary
matter, would give more trouble than the primary. These things at some
future time, when we are at leisure, may have the consideration which they
deserve, but not at present.
Now, when all the stars which were necessary to the creation of time had
attained a motion suitable to them, and had become living creatures having
bodies fastened by vital chains, and learnt their appointed task, moving in
the motion of the diverse, which is diagonal, and passes through and is
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson: But whenever I heard the recruiters come,
I left my all to follow the drum.
THE VANQUISHED KNIGHT
I HAVE left all upon the shameful field,
Honour and Hope, my God, and all but life;
Spurless, with sword reversed and dinted shield,
Degraded and disgraced, I leave the strife.
From him that hath not, shall there not be taken
E'en that he hath, when he deserts the strife?
Life left by all life's benefits forsaken,
O keep the promise, Lord, and take the life.
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