| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Last War: A World Set Free by H. G. Wells: embarked upon so eagerly as to lead to a number of disastrous
explosions due to inexperienced handling of the new power, and
the revolutionary cheapening of both materials and electricity
made the entire reconstruction of domestic buildings a matter
merely dependent upon a reorganisation of the methods of the
builder and the house-furnisher. Viewed from the side of the new
power and from the point of view of those who financed and
manufactured the new engines and material it required the age of
the Leap into the Air was one of astonishing prosperity.
Patent-holding companies were presently paying dividends of five
or six hundred per cent. and enormous fortunes were made and
The Last War: A World Set Free |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne: will be distant from the zenith point by four times that quantity,
_i. e._ by 52@ 41' 20'', a space which corresponds to the path
which she will describe during the entire journey of the projectile.
But, inasmuch as it is equally necessary to take into account the
deviation which the rotary motion of the earth will impart to the
shot, and as the shot cannot reach the moon until after a deviation
equal to 16 radii of the earth, which, calculated upon the moon's
orbit, are equal to about eleven degrees, it becomes necessary to
add these eleven degrees to those which express the retardation of
the moon just mentioned: that is to say, in round numbers, about
sixty-four degrees. Consequently, at the moment of firing the
From the Earth to the Moon |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: couples reveal their characters in picturesque language. As I
listened, I could make their lives mine, I felt their rags on my back,
I walked with their gaping shoes on my feet; their cravings, their
needs, had all passed into my soul, or my soul had passed into theirs.
It was the dream of a waking man. I waxed hot with them over the
foreman's tyranny, or the bad customers that made them call again and
again for payment.
To come out of my own ways of life, to be another than myself through
a kind of intoxication of the intellectual faculties, and to play this
game at will, such was my recreation. Whence comes the gift? Is it a
kind of second sight? Is it one of those powers which when abused end
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