| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: without mishap, a room filled with more tables than I had ever
dreamed of, tables that seemed to waylay and strike at me. When I
had got a window open, Hotchkiss crawled through, and we were at
last under shelter.
Our first thought was for a light. The same laborious
investigation that had landed us where we were, revealed that the
house was lighted by electricity, and that the plant was not in
operation. By accident I stumbled across a tabouret with smoking
materials, and found a half dozen matches. The first one showed
us the magnitude of the room we stood in, and revealed also a
brass candle-stick by the open fireplace, a candle-stick almost
The Man in Lower Ten |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: to the condensed confidential comfortableness of sharing a pipe and a
blanket with a real friend. With our shaggy jackets drawn about our
shoulders, we now passed the Tomahawk from one to the other, till
slowly there grew over us a blue hanging tester of smoke, illuminated
by the flame of the new-lit lamp.
Whether it was that this undulating tester rolled the savage away to
far distant scenes, I know not, but he now spoke of his native
island; and, eager to hear his history, I begged him to go on and
tell it. He gladly complied. Though at the time I but ill
comprehended not a few of his words, yet subsequent disclosures, when
I had become more familiar with his broken phraseology, now enable me
Moby Dick |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: learned of the treacherous conduct of one in whom he had every
reason to trust. That evening the prayer seemed unusually short
and formal. As the singing stopped he arose abruptly and left the
room. I hastened after him, fearing some sudden illness. 'What is
it?' I asked. 'It is this,' was the reply; 'I am not yet fit to
say, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass
against us."'
It is with natural reluctance that I touch upon the last prayer of
my husband's life. Many have supposed that he showed, in the
wording of this prayer, that he had some premonition of his
approaching death. I am sure he had no such premonition. It was I
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