| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Footnote to History by Robert Louis Stevenson: The six ring-leaders, acting in Mataafa's interest, had been guilty
of a delict; with Mataafa's approval, they delivered themselves
over to be tried. On Friday, September 4, 1891, they were
convicted before a native magistrate and sentenced to six months'
imprisonment; or, I should rather say, detention; for it was
expressly directed that they were to be used as gentlemen and not
as prisoners, that the door was to stand open, and that all their
wishes should be gratified. This extraordinary sentence fell upon
the accused like a thunderbolt. There is no need to suppose
perfidy, where a careless interpreter suffices to explain all; but
the six chiefs claim to have understood their coming to Apia as an
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: "The third day of the rain it slacked up awhile in the afternoon, so
me and Andy walked out to the edge of town to view the mudscape. Bird
City was built between the Rio Grande and a deep wide arroyo that used
to be the old bed of the river. The bank between the stream and its
old bed was cracking and giving away, when we saw it, on account of
the high water caused by the rain. Andy looks at it a long time. That
man's intellects was never idle. And then he unfolds to me a
instantaneous idea that has occurred to him. Right there was organized
a trust; and we walked back into town and put it on the market.
"First we went to the main saloon in Bird City, called the Blue Snake,
and bought it. It cost us $1,200. And then we dropped in, casual, at
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: affairs of the government, and protect him in his reform
measures."
The Emperor knew that nothing could be done without the command
of the army which was largely in the hands of a great
conservative friend of the Empress Dowager (Jung Lu) the
father-in-law of the present Regent. Yuan was in charge of an
army corps of 12,500 troops, but for him to have taken them even
at the command of the Emperor, without informing his superior
officer, would have meant the loss of his head at once. The first
thing then for him to do was to take this order to Jung Lu. Yuan
was in favour of reform, though he may not have approved of the
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