| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: made the Phaeacians take so great a liking to you? And now,
again, I am come here to talk things over with you, and help you
to hide the treasure I made the Phaeacians give you; I want to
tell you about the troubles that await you in your own house;
you have got to face them, but tell no one, neither man nor
woman, that you have come home again. Bear everything, and put
up with every man's insolence, without a word."
And Ulysses answered, "A man, goddess, may know a great deal,
but you are so constantly changing your appearance that when he
meets you it is a hard matter for him to know whether it is you
or not. This much, however, I know exceedingly well; you were
The Odyssey |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from O Pioneers! by Willa Cather: together in one long house, divided off like
barracks. Ivar had explained his choice by
saying that the fewer neighbors he had, the
fewer temptations. Nevertheless, when one
considered that his chief business was horse-
doctoring, it seemed rather short-sighted of
him to live in the most inaccessible place he
could find. The Bergson wagon lurched along
over the rough hummocks and grass banks, fol-
lowed the bottom of winding draws, or skirted
the margin of wide lagoons, where the golden
O Pioneers! |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells: You begin to see that it is a possible thing to transplant tissue
from one part of an animal to another, or from one animal to another;
to alter its chemical reactions and methods of growth; to modify
the articulations of its limbs; and, indeed, to change it in its most
intimate structure.
"And yet this extraordinary branch of knowledge has never been sought
as an end, and systematically, by modern investigators until I took it up!
Some of such things have been hit upon in the last resort of surgery;
most of the kindred evidence that will recur to your mind has been
demonstrated as it were by accident,--by tyrants, by criminals,
by the breeders of horses and dogs, by all kinds of untrained
The Island of Doctor Moreau |
