| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous by Oscar Wilde: recognised that they belonged to the lost Florentine Tragedy. I
assumed that the opening scene, though once extant, had disappeared.
One day, however, Mr. Willard wrote that he possessed a typewritten
fragment of a play which Wilde had submitted to him, and this he
kindly forwarded for my inspection. It agreed in nearly every
particular with what I had taken so much trouble to put together.
This suggests that the opening scene had never been written, as Mr.
Willard's version began where mine did. It was characteristic of
the author to finish what he never began.
When the Literary Theatre Society produced Salome in 1906 they asked
me for some other short drama by Wilde to present at the same time,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson: "You must be differently made from me," said the reader.
"Let me tell you a fable," said the book. "There were two men
wrecked upon a desert island; one of them made believe he was at
home, the other admitted - "
"Oh, I know your kind of fable," said the reader. "They both
died."
"And so they did," said the book. "No doubt of that. And
everybody else."
"That is true," said the reader. "Push it a little further for
this once. And when they were all dead?"
"They were in God's hands, the same as before," said the book.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Master of the World by Jules Verne: even in a rough sea.
As was already known, the power by which the machine was driven, was
neither steam nor gasoline, nor any of those similar liquids so well
known by their odor, which are usually employed for automobiles and
submarines. No doubt the power here used was electricity, generated
on board, at some high power. Naturally I asked myself whence comes
this electricity, from piles, or from accumulators? But how were
these piles or accumulators charged? Unless, indeed, the electricity
was drawn directly from the surrounding air or from the water, by
processes hitherto unknown. And I asked myself with intense eagerness
if in the present situation, I might be able to discover these
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