| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Herland by Charlotte Gilman: I noticed that more and more of these savages had a story about a
strange and terrible Woman Land in the high distance.
"Up yonder," "Over there," "Way up"--was all the direction
they could offer, but their legends all agreed on the main point
--that there was this strange country where no men lived--only
women and girl children.
None of them had ever seen it. It was dangerous, deadly, they
said, for any man to go there. But there were tales of long ago,
when some brave investigator had seen it--a Big Country, Big
Houses, Plenty People--All Women.
Had no one else gone? Yes--a good many--but they never
Herland |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad: Winnie Verloc saw no writing on the wall. He turned to his wife
again, repeating, with some emphasis:
"I would have taken him by the throat. As true as I stand here, if
I hadn't thought of you then I would have half choked the life out
of the brute before I let him get up. And don't you think he would
have been anxious to call the police either. He wouldn't have
dared. You understand why - don't you?"
He blinked at his wife knowingly.
"No," said Mrs Verloc in an unresonant voice, and without looking
at him at all. "What are you talking about?"
A great discouragement, the result of fatigue, came upon Mr Verloc.
The Secret Agent |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Last War: A World Set Free by H. G. Wells: age; we stand upon a common stock of thought and we fancy we
stand upon the ground. I met a pleasant man the other day, a
Maori, whose great-grandfather was a cannibal. It chanced he had
a daguerreotype of the old sinner, and the two were marvellously
alike. One felt that a little juggling with time and either
might have been the other. People are cruel and stupid in a
stupid age who might be gentle and splendid in a gracious one.
The world also has its moods. Think of the mental food of
Bismarck's childhood; the humiliations of Napoleon's victories,
the crowded, crowning victory of the Battle of the Nations....
Everybody in those days, wise or foolish, believed that the
The Last War: A World Set Free |
