| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: write it--the Hilltop School--this quiet and secluded region!
The stream of humanity is very slow and slender here--it
trickles. You must get out into the busy world. You must be
in the full current and feel its force. You must take part in
the active life of mankind in order really to know it."
"A mistake!" he cried. "Action is the thing that blinds
men. You remember Matthew Arnold's line:
In action's dizzying eddy whurled.
To know the world you must stand apart from it and above it;
you must look down on it."
"Well, then," said I, "you will have to find some secret
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from From London to Land's End by Daniel Defoe: an uproar.
The matter was that a great shoal--or, as they call it, a "school"-
-of pilchards came swimming with the tide of flood, directly out of
the sea into the harbour. My friend whose boat we were in told me
this was a surprise which he would have been very glad of if he
could but have had a day or two's warning, for he might have taken
200 tons of them. And the like was the case of other merchants in
town; for, in short, nobody was ready for them, except a small
fishing-boat or two--one of which went out into the middle of the
harbour, and at two or three hauls took about forty thousand of
them. We sent our servant to the quay to buy some, who for a
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: it might have other human instincts; but these she dreaded even
to think of. After she had sung she waited for Ghek to speak. For
a long time he was silent, just looking at her through those
awful eyes.
"I wonder," he said presently, "if it might not be pleasant to be
of your race. Do you all sing?"
"Nearly all, a little," she said; "but we do many other
interesting and enjoyable things. We dance and play and work and
love and sometimes we fight, for we are a race of warriors."
"Love!" said the kaldane. "I think I know what you mean; but we,
fortunately, are above sentiment--when we are detached. But when
The Chessmen of Mars |
