| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy: his whole body was trembling, as if with ague, while a piteous wail
escaped his bloodless lips. The rope which had originally been wound
round his shoulders and arms had evidently given way, for it lay in a
tangle about his body, but he seemed quite unconscious of this, for he
had not made the slightest attempt to move from the place where Desgas
had originally put him: like a terrified chicken which looks upon a
line of white chalk, drawn on a table, as on a string which paralyzes
its movements.
"Bring the cowardly brute here," commanded Chauvelin.
He certainly felt exceedingly vicious, and since he had no
reasonable grounds for venting his ill-humour on the soldiers who had
The Scarlet Pimpernel |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: wills and enslave the powers of other individuals and classes. The
powers of the parent and the schoolmaster, and of their public
analogues the lawgiver and the judge, become instruments of tyranny in
the hands of those who are too narrow-minded to understand law and
exercise judgment; and in their hands (with us they mostly fall into
such hands) law becomes tyranny. And what is a tyrant? Quite simply
a person who says to another person, young or old, "You shall do as I
tell you; you shall make what I want; you shall profess my creed; you
shall have no will of your own; and your powers shall be at the
disposal of my will." It has come to this at last: that the phrase
"she has a will of her own," or "he has a will of his own" has come to
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Time Machine by H. G. Wells: even say whether it ran on all-fours, or only with its forearms
held very low. After an instant's pause I followed it into the
second heap of ruins. I could not find it at first; but, after a
time in the profound obscurity, I came upon one of those round
well-like openings of which I have told you, half closed by a
fallen pillar. A sudden thought came to me. Could this Thing
have vanished down the shaft? I lit a match, and, looking down,
I saw a small, white, moving creature, with large bright eyes
which regarded me steadfastly as it retreated. It made me
shudder. It was so like a human spider! It was clambering down
the wall, and now I saw for the first time a number of metal foot
The Time Machine |
