| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Herbert West: Reanimator by H. P. Lovecraft: masonry; undoubtedly connected with the old burying-ground, yet
far too deep to correspond with any known sepulchre therein. After
a number of calculations West decided that it represented some
secret chamber beneath the tomb of the Averills, where the last
interment had been made in 1768. I was with him when he studied
the nitrous, dripping walls laid bare by the spades and mattocks
of the men, and was prepared for the gruesome thrill which would
attend the uncovering of centuried grave-secrets; but for the
first time West’s new timidity conquered his natural curiosity,
and he betrayed his degenerating fibre by ordering the masonry
left intact and plastered over. Thus it remained till that final
Herbert West: Reanimator |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: results, like those of most modern political economists, have to be
modified largely (20) before they come to correspond with what we
know was the actual state of fact. Similarly, Polybius will deal
only with those forces which tended to bring the civilised world
under the dominion of Rome (ix. 1), and in the Thucydidean spirit
points out the want of picturesqueness and romance in his pages
which is the result of the abstract method ([Greek text which
cannot be reproduced]) being careful also to tell us that his
rejection of all other forces is essentially deliberate and the
result of a preconceived theory and by no means due to carelessness
of any kind.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Juana by Honore de Balzac: antipathy felt by all real soldiers against the bureaucrats. The
quartermaster was not without courage and a certain juvenile
generosity, sentiments which many men give up as they grow older, by
dint of reasoning or calculating. Variable as the beauty of a fair
woman, Diard was a great boaster and a great talker, talking of
everything. He said he was artistic, and he made prizes (like two
celebrated generals) of works of art, solely, he declared, to preserve
them for posterity. His military comrades would have been puzzled
indeed to form a correct judgment of him. Many of them, accustomed to
draw upon his funds when occasion obliged them, thought him rich; but
in truth, he was a gambler, and gamblers may be said to have nothing
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