| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: him the compliment of a visit. Young Hay of Romanes rode down to call,
on his crop-eared pony; young Pringle of Drumanno came up on his bony
grey. Hay remained on the hospitable field, and must be carried to bed;
Pringle got somehow to his saddle about 3 A.M., and (as Archie stood
with the lamp on the upper doorstep) lurched, uttered a senseless view-
holloa, and vanished out of the small circle of illumination like a
wraith. Yet a minute or two longer the clatter of his break-neck flight
was audible, then it was cut off by the intervening steepness of the
hill; and again, a great while after, the renewed beating of phantom
horse-hoofs, far in the valley of the Hermiston, showed that the horse
at least, if not his rider, was still on the homeward way.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: other occult sciences, by experience, and induction founded thereon.
Countless students busied themselves over the transmutation of
metals. As for magic, necromancy, pyromancy, geomancy,
coscinomancy, and all the other mancies--there was then a whole
literature about them. And the witch-burning inquisitors like
Sprenger, Bodin, Delrio, and the rest, believed as firmly in the
magic powers of the poor wretches whom they tortured to death, as
did, in many cases, the poor wretches themselves.
Everyone, almost, believed in magic. Take two cases. Read the
story which Benvenuto Cellini, the sculptor, tells in his life
(everyone should read it) of the magician whom he consults in the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Frances Waldeaux by Rebecca Davis: Her face was scarlet, and she laughed nervously. Prince
Wolfburgh also laughed, loudly and meaningly. He swore
at the old man and went out into the cloister where his
cousin stood smoking.
"Had enough of the old barracks?" said the captain.
"I found I was making too fast running in there," said
the prince uneasily; "I'll waken up and find that girl
married to me some day."
"Not so bad a dream," puffed his cousin.
"I'll take a train somewhere," said the prince. "But no
matter where I go, I'll find an American old woman with
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