| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: board."
It shows how much I had suffered morally during my sojourn
in San Francisco, that even now when our fortunes trembled in
the balance, I should have consented to become a smuggler and
(of all things) a smuggler of opium. Yet I did, and that in
silence; without a protest, not without a twinge.
"And suppose," said I, "suppose the opium is so securely
hidden that I can't get hands on it?"
"Then you will stay there till that brig is kindling-wood, and
stay and split that kindling-wood with your penknife," cried
Pinkerton. "The stuff is there; we know that; and it must be
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: his private life, that the illustrious nymph, dreading some
catastrophe, soon remitted the sculptor to love of the arts. Sophie
Arnould made some witty remark on the subject. She was surprised, I
think, that her colleague was able to triumph over statues.
"Sarrasine started for Italy in 1758. On the journey his ardent
imagination took fire beneath a sky of copper and at the sight of the
marvelous monuments with which the fatherland of the arts is strewn.
He admired the statues, the frescoes, the pictures; and, fired with a
spirit of emulation, he went on to Rome, burning to inscribe his name
between the names of Michelangelo and Bouchardon. At first, therefore,
he divided his time between his studio work and examination of the
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft: another albeit a lesser puzzle because of their regularity of
outline. They were, as Lake’s bulletin had said, often approximately
square or semicircular; as if the natural orifices had been shaped
to greater symmetry by some magic hand. Their numerousness and
wide distribution were remarkable, and suggested that the whole
region was honeycombed with tunnels dissolved out of limestone
strata. Such glimpses as we secured did not extend far within
the caverns, but we saw that they were apparently clear of stalactites
and stalagmites. Outside, those parts of the mountain slopes adjoining
the apertures seemed invariably smooth and regular; and Danforth
thought that the slight cracks and pittings of the weathering
 At the Mountains of Madness |