| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: while away a leisure hour harmlessly, and perhaps usefully, as a
substitute for coarser sports, or for the reading of novels.
Those, however, who have followed it out, especially on the sea-
shore, know better. They can tell from experience, that over and
above its accessory charms of pure sea-breezes, and wild rambles by
cliff and loch, the study itself has had a weighty moral effect
upon their hearts and spirits. There are those who can well
understand how the good and wise John Ellis, amid all his
philanthropic labours for the good of the West Indies, while he was
spending his intellect and fortune in introducing into our tropic
settlements the bread-fruit, the mangosteen, and every plant and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: their bit occupations - if I may use Scotch to you - it is so far
more scornful than any English idiom. Well, I can't help being a
skeleton, and you are to take this devious passage for an apology.
I thought ALADDIN capital fun; but why, in fortune, did he pretend
it was moral at the end? The so-called nineteenth century, OU VA-
T-IL SE NICHER? 'Tis a trifle, but Pyle would do well to knock the
passage out, and leave his boguey tale a boguey tale, and a good
one at that.
The arrival of your box was altogether a great success to the
castaways. You have no idea where we live. Do you know, in all
these islands there are not five hundred whites, and no postal
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Land of Footprints by Stewart Edward White: rubber-plants and self-made business and a pug-dog within
commuters' distance of New York. But at the slightest alarm this
swollen and puffy importance breaks down completely. Away they
scurry, their tails held stiffly and straightly perpendicular,
their short legs scrabbling the small stones in a frantic effort
to go faster than nature had intended them to go. Nor do they
cease their flight at a reasonable distance, but keep on going
over hill and dale, until they fairly vanish in the blue. I used
to like starting them off this way, just for the sake of
contrast, and also for the sake of the delicious but impossible
vision of seeing their human prototypes do likewise.
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