| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: One would think we had been brought up in a fever country; yet in
England the most malarious districts are in the bedchambers.
I felt saddened at this defection, and yet half-pleased to have the
night so quietly to myself. The wind had hauled a little ahead on
the starboard bow, and was dry but chilly. I found a shelter near
the fire-hole, and made myself snug for the night.
The ship moved over the uneven sea with a gentle and cradling
movement. The ponderous, organic labours of the engine in her bowels
occupied the mind, and prepared it for slumber. From time to time a
heavier lurch would disturb me as I lay, and recall me to the obscure
borders of consciousness; or I heard, as it were through a veil, the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: stood open; in it there were two shirts, a white necktie and a razor.
The razor made me shudder. A looking-glass, worth five francs perhaps,
hung near the window.
The man's few and simple movements had a sort of savage grandeur. The
Doctor and I looked at each other, wondering what we could say in
reply. Juste, seeing that I was speechless, asked Marcas jestingly:
"You cultivate literature, monsieur?"
"Far from it!" replied Marcas. "I should not be so wealthy."
"I fancied," said I, "that poetry alone, in these days, was amply
sufficient to provide a man with lodgings as bad as ours."
My remark made Marcas smile, and the smile gave a charm to his yellow
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: the fear of laying great part of Egypt under water, for some of that
country lies lower than sea.
Distant from Rondelo a hundred and thirty leagues is the Isle of
Suaquem, where the Bassa of that country chooses his residence, for
the convenience of receiving the tribute with greater exactness,
there being a large trade carried on here with the Abyssins. The
Turks of Suaquem have gardens on the firm land, not above a musket
shot from the island, which supply them with many excellent herbs
and fruits, of which I doubt whether there be not a greater quantity
on this little spot than on the whole coast of Africa besides, from
Melinda to Suez. For if we except the dates which grow between Suez
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