| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Time Machine by H. G. Wells: knowledge would lead me back to them in a natural way. Yet a
certain feeling, you may understand, tethered me in a circle of a
few miles round the point of my arrival.
`So far as I could see, all the world displayed the same
exuberant richness as the Thames valley. From every hill I
climbed I saw the same abundance of splendid buildings, endlessly
varied in material and style, the same clustering thickets of
evergreens, the same blossom-laden trees and tree-ferns. Here
and there water shone like silver, and beyond, the land rose into
blue undulating hills, and so faded into the serenity of the sky.
A peculiar feature, which presently attracted my attention, was
The Time Machine |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: BOOK VII.
And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened
or unenlightened:--Behold! human beings living in a underground den, which
has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here
they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained
so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by
the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is
blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a
raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way,
like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which
they show the puppets.
The Republic |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Faraday as a Discoverer by John Tyndall: must mainly rest. But even without them, sufficient would remain to
secure for him a high and lasting scientific reputation. We should
still have his researches on the Liquefaction of Gases; on
Frictional Electricity; on the Electricity of the Gymnotus; on the
source of Power in the Hydro-electric machine, the last two
investigations being untouched in the foregoing memoir; on
Electro-magnetic Rotations; on Regelation; all his more purely
Chemical Researches, including his discovery of Benzol. Besides
these he published a multitude of minor papers, most of which, in
some way or other, illustrate his genius. I have made no allusion
to his power and sweetness as a lecturer. Taking him for all in
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