| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: view of Havre, and pleasantly entertained by passing fishing-boats,
hovering sea-gulls, and Vulgarians pairing on deck with endearments
of primitive simplicity. There, sir, can be viewed the sham
quarrel, the sham desire for information, and every device of these
two poor ancient sexes (who might, you might think, have learned in
the course of the ages something new) down to the exchange of head-
gear. - I am, sir, yours,
BOLD BOB BOLTSPRIT.
B. B. B. (ALIAS the Commodore) will now turn to his proofs. Havre
de Grace is a city of some show. It is for-ti-fied; and, so far as
I can see, is a place of some trade. It is situ-ated in France, a
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Door in the Wall, et. al. by H. G. Wells: trouble was the secrecy. You see, if once I had let out what I was
doing, other men might have been spurred on by my belief in the
practicability of the idea; and I do not pretend to be such a
genius as to have been sure of coming in first, in the case of a
race for the discovery. And you see it was important that if I
really meant to make a pile, people should not know it was an
artificial process and capable of turning out diamonds by the ton.
So I had to work all alone. At first I had a little laboratory,
but as my resources began to run out I had to conduct my
experiments in a wretched unfurnished room in Kentish Town, where
I slept at last on a straw mattress on the floor among all my
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: land-breeze came in refreshing draughts; and the club men
gathered together for the hour of absinthe. To the commandant
himself, to the man whom he was then contending with at
billiards--a trader from the next island, honorary member of the
club, and once carpenter's mate on board a Yankee war-ship--
to the doctor of the port, to the Brigadier of Gendarmerie, to the
opium farmer, and to all the white men whom the tide of
commerce, or the chances of shipwreck and desertion, had
stranded on the beach of Tai-o-hae, Mr. Loudon Dodd was
formally presented; by all (since he was a man of pleasing
exterior, smooth ways, and an unexceptionable flow of talk,
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