| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Ebb-Tide by Stevenson & Osbourne: 'I guess I can understand any blame' thing that you can tell
me,' said the captain.
'Well, then, he's a fatalist,' said Herrick.
'What's that, a fatalist?' said Davis.
'Oh, it's a fellow that believes a lot of things,' said Herrick,
'believes that his bullets go true; believes that all falls out
as God chooses, do as you like to prevent it; and all that.'
'Why, I guess I believe right so myself,' said Davis.
'You do?' said Herrick.
'You bet I do!' says Davis.
Herrick shrugged his shoulders. 'Well, you must be a fool,'
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: course of a single tide.
[Tuesday, 25th Aug.]
We had now experienced an almost unvaried tract of light
airs of easterly wind, with clear weather in the fore-part of
the day and fog in the evenings. To-day, however, it sensibly
changed; when the wind came to the south-west, and blew a
fresh breeze. At nine a.m. the bell rung, and the boats were
hoisted out, and though the artificers were now pretty well
accustomed to tripping up and down the sides of the floating
light, yet it required more seamanship this morning than
usual. It therefore afforded some merriment to those who had
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: Sir Thomas Lucy's preserves, the world would have wagged on
better or worse, the pitcher gone to the well, the scythe to
the corn, and the student to his book; and no one been any the
wiser of the loss. There are not many works extant, if you
look the alternative all over, which are worth the price of a
pound of tobacco to a man of limited means. This is a
sobering reflection for the proudest of our earthly vanities.
Even a tobacconist may, upon consideration, find no great
cause for personal vainglory in the phrase; for although
tobacco is an admirable sedative, the qualities necessary for
retailing it are neither rare nor precious in themselves.
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