| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: celebrated at Mentone by a dinner to the Mentonese, it was proposed
to give them solid English fare - roast beef and plum pudding, and
no tomfoolery. Here we have either pole of the Britannic folly.
We will not eat the food of any foreigner; nor, when we have the
chance, will we eager him to eat of it himself. The same spirit
inspired Miss Bird's American missionaries, who had come thousands
of miles to change the faith of Japan, and openly professed their
ignorance of the religions they were trying to supplant.
I quote an American in this connection without scruple. Uncle Sam
is better than John Bull, but he is tarred with the English stick.
For Mr. Grant White the States are the New England States and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce: been standing. The sergeant turned to the captain, saluted
and placed himself immediately behind that officer, who in
turn moved apart one pace. These movements left the
condemned man and the sergeant standing on the two ends of
the same plank, which spanned three of the cross-ties of the
bridge. The end upon which the civilian stood almost, but
not quite, reached a fourth. This plank had been held in
place by the weight of the captain; it was now held by that
of the sergeant. At a signal from the former the latter
would step aside, the plank would tilt and the condemned man
go down between two ties. The arrangement commended itself
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: 1703, he lost his mule, his portfolios, and his Bible. It is only
strange that they were not surprised more often and more
effectually; for this legion of Cassagnas was truly patriarchal in
its theory of war, and camped without sentries, leaving that duty
to the angels of the God for whom they fought. This is a token,
not only of their faith, but of the trackless country where they
harboured. M. de Caladon, taking a stroll one fine day, walked
without warning into their midst, as he might have walked into 'a
flock of sheep in a plain,' and found some asleep and some awake
and psalm-singing. A traitor had need of no recommendation to
insinuate himself among their ranks, beyond 'his faculty of singing
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