| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Beauty and The Beast by Bayard Taylor: This was not so much a mere venture as the reader may suppose,
because the two actions of the mind test each other. If they
cannot, thus working towards a point and back again, actually
discover what WAS, they may at least fix upon a very probable
MIGHT HAVE BEEN.
A person accustomed to detective work would have obtained my little
stock of facts with much less trouble, and would, almost
instinctively, have filled the blanks as he went along. Being an
apprentice in such matters, I had handled the materials awkwardly.
I will not here retrace my own mental zigzags between character and
act, but simply repeat the story as I finally settled and accepted
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson: scarlet fruit - when there came a sound of singing in the wind that
I thought I had never heard the like of. It was all very fine to
tell myself it was the branches; I knew better. It was all very
fine to tell myself it was a bird; I knew never a bird that sang
like that. It rose and swelled, and died away and swelled again;
and now I thought it was like someone weeping, only prettier; and
now I thought it was like harps; and there was one thing I made
sure of, it was a sight too sweet to be wholesome in a place like
that. You may laugh if you like; but I declare I called to mind
the six young ladies that came, with their scarlet necklaces, out
of the cave at Fanga-anaana, and wondered if they sang like that.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: "He's up town," returned the other.
"Up town!" sneered Pinkerton. "Now, I'll tell you what you are:
you're a Fraud; and if I wasn't afraid of dirtying my boot, I
would kick you and your dinner into that dock."
"I'll tell you something, too," retorted the captain, duskily
flushing. "I wouldn't sail this ship for the man you are, if you
went upon your knees. I've dealt with gentlemen up to now."
"I can tell you the names of a number of gentlemen you'll never
deal with any more, and that's the whole of Longhurst's gang,"
said Jim. "I'll put your pipe out in that quarter, my friend.
Here, rout out your traps as quick as look at it, and take your
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