| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: marked Port Hamilton. But as one of the boats was in the act
of entering this creek, the seaman at the bow-oar, who had
just entered the service, having inadvertently expressed some
fear from a heavy sea which came rolling towards the boat, and
one of the artificers having at the same time looked round and
missed a stroke with his oar, such a preponderance was thus
given to the rowers upon the opposite side that when the wave
struck the boat it threw her upon a ledge of shelving rocks,
where the water left her, and she having KANTED to seaward,
the next wave completely filled her with water. After making
considerable efforts the boat was again got afloat in the
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Men of Iron by Howard Pyle: indeed he was hardly less jubilant than Myles over the honor.
Five minutes later he was busy arming him in the little room at
the end of the dormitory which had been lately set apart for the
use of the head bachelor. "And to think," he said, looking up as
he kneeled, strapping the thigh-plates to his friend's legs,
"that he should have chosen thee before all others of the fine
knights and lords and gentlemen of quality that are here!"
"Yea," said Myles, "it passeth wonder. I know not why he should
so single me out for such an honor. It is strangely marvellous."
"Nay," said Gascoyne, "there is no marvel in it, and I know right
well why he chooseth thee. It is because he sees, as we all see,
Men of Iron |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: likely to retain some of his inner rings unbroken; that the earth
would be likely to have a long day and Jupiter a short one; that
the extreme outer planets would be not unlikely to rotate in a
retrograde direction; and so on, through a long list of
interesting and striking details. Not only, therefore, are we
driven to the inference that our solar system was once a vaporous
nebula, but we find that the mere contraction of such a nebula,
under the influence of the enormous mutual gravitation of its
particles, carries with it the explanation of both the more
general and the more particular features of the present system.
So that we may fairly regard this stupendous process as veritable
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
