| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: much the sound is lost in foggy weather, as the report was
heard but at a very short distance. The sound from the
explosion of gunpowder is so instantaneous that the effect of
the small guns was not so good as either the blowing of a horn
or the tolling of a bell, which afforded a more constant and
steady direction for the pilot.
[Wednesday, 6th July]
Landed on the rock with the three boats belonging to the
tender at five p.m., and began immediately to bale the water
out of the foundation-pit with a number of buckets, while the
pumps were also kept in action with relays of artificers and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The War in the Air by H. G. Wells: pistol and sword. At that, like an automaton, Bert pulled his
trigger.
It was his first experience of an oxygen-containing bullet. A
great flame spurted from the middle of the Prince, a blinding
flare, and there came a thud like the firing of a gun. Something
hot and wet struck Bert's face. Then through a whirl of blinding
smoke and steam he saw limbs and a collapsing, burst body fling
themselves to earth.
Bert was so astonished that he stood agape, and the bird-faced
officer might have cut him to the earth without a struggle. But
instead the bird-faced officer was running away through the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from An Historical Mystery by Honore de Balzac: two by a paved road-way, are the stables, cow-sheds, barns, wood-
house, bakery, poultry-yard, and the offices, placed in what were
doubtless the remains of two wings of the old building similar to
those that were still standing. The two large towers, with their
pepper-pot roofs which had not been rased, and the belfry of the
middle tower, gave an air of distinction to the village. The church,
also very old, showed near by its pointed steeple, which harmonized
well with the solid masses of the castle. The moon brought out in full
relief the various roofs and towers on which it played and sparkled.
Michu gazed at this baronial structure in a manner that upset all his
wife's ideas about him; his face, now calm, wore a look of hope and
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