| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: was a mistake. You see, the captain had given up the race, but
that remark was too tedious for him - he couldn't stand it. He
turned to the mate, and says he -
"Have we got brimstone enough of our own to make the trip?"
"Yes, sir."
"Sure?"
"Yes, sir - more than enough."
"How much have we got in cargo for Satan?"
"Eighteen hundred thousand billion quintillions of kazarks."
"Very well, then, let his boarders freeze till the next comet
comes. Lighten ship! Lively, now, lively, men! Heave the whole
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens: speculations of the same kind.
Finding himself at this supper, surrounded by faces with which he
had been so well acquainted in old times, Mr Willet recurred to the
subject with uncommon vigour; apparently resolved to understand it
now or never. Sometimes, after every two or three mouthfuls, he
laid down his knife and fork, and stared at his son with all his
might--particularly at his maimed side; then, he looked slowly
round the table until he caught some person's eye, when he shook
his head with great solemnity, patted his shoulder, winked, or as
one may say--for winking was a very slow process with him--went to
sleep with one eye for a minute or two; and so, with another solemn
Barnaby Rudge |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Crowd by Gustave le Bon: forethought for the future, an elevated degree of culture--all of
them conditions that crowds, left to themselves, have invariably
shown themselves incapable of realising. In consequence of the
purely destructive nature of their power crowds act like those
microbes which hasten the dissolution of enfeebled or dead
bodies. When the structure of a civilisation is rotten, it is
always the masses that bring about its downfall. It is at such a
juncture that their chief mission is plainly visible, and that
for a while the philosophy of number seems the only philosophy of
history.
Is the same fate in store for our civilisation? There is ground
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