| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Footnote to History by Robert Louis Stevenson: the report of residents and a fallacious rise in the glass; he
stayed with the others, a misjudgment that was like to cost him
dear. All were moored, as is the custom in Apia, with two anchors
practically east and west, clear hawse to the north, and a kedge
astern. Topmasts were struck, and the ships made snug. The night
closed black, with sheets of rain. By midnight it blew a gale; and
by the morning watch, a tempest. Through what remained of
darkness, the captains impatiently expected day, doubtful if they
were dragging, steaming gingerly to their moorings, and afraid to
steam too much.
Day came about six, and presented to those on shore a seizing and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Arizona Nights by Stewart Edward White: the mad races to head the mustangs, the fierce combats to subdue
these raging wild beasts to the saddle, the spectacle of the
round-up with its brutish multitudes and its graceful riders, the
dust and monotony and excitement and glory of the Trail, and
especially the hundreds of incidental and gratuitous adventures
of bears and antelope, of thirst and heat, of the joy of taking
care of one's self--all these would have filled our days with the
glittering, changing throng of the unusual.
But to Senor Johnson it had become an old story. After the days
of construction the days of accomplishment seemed to him lean.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Letters from England by Elizabeth Davis Bancroft: dress, perhaps, is not so tasteful, so simply elegant as ours. Upon
the whole I think more highly of our own country (I mean from a
social point of view alone) than before I came abroad. There is
less superiority over us in manners and all the social arts than I
could have believed possible in a country where a large and wealthy
class have been set apart from time immemorial to create, as it
were, a social standard of high refinement. The chief difference
that I perceive is this: In our country the position of everybody
is undefined and rests altogether upon public opinion. This leads
sometimes to a little assumption and pretension of manner, which the
highest class here, whose claims are always allowed by all about
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