| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs: as time, but I feel that I am about to take a trip
into the hereafter from which I shall never return.
If you and Ghak should manage to escape I want you to
promise me that you will find Dian the Beautiful and tell
her that with my last words I asked her forgiveness
for the unintentional affront I put upon her, and that my
one wish was to be spared long enough to right the wrong
that I had done her."
Tears came to Perry's eyes.
"I cannot believe but that you will return, David," he said.
"It would be awful to think of living out the balance of my
At the Earth's Core |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: did not drive them out, citizen and stranger alike.
SOCRATES: Has any of the Sophists wronged you, Anytus? What makes you so
angry with them?
ANYTUS: No, indeed, neither I nor any of my belongings has ever had, nor
would I suffer them to have, anything to do with them.
SOCRATES: Then you are entirely unacquainted with them?
ANYTUS: And I have no wish to be acquainted.
SOCRATES: Then, my dear friend, how can you know whether a thing is good
or bad of which you are wholly ignorant?
ANYTUS: Quite well; I am sure that I know what manner of men these are,
whether I am acquainted with them or not.
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: present strength? This remark in passing, and by way of text;
now I come to what I was going to say.
I have just now fallen upon a darling literary curiosity.
It is a little book, a manuscript compilation, and the compiler
sent it to me with the request that I say whether I think it
ought to be published or not. I said, Yes; but as I slowly grow
wise I briskly grow cautious; and so, now that the publication is
imminent, it has seemed to me that I should feel more comfortable
if I could divide up this responsibility with the public by
adding them to the court. Therefore I will print some extracts
from the book, in the hope that they may make converts to my
What is Man? |
