| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne: at Tomsk; face to face with the one whose villainous hand
would an instant later betray the town!
"Ivan Ogareff!" she cried.
On hearing his name pronounced, the wretch started.
His real name known, all his plans would be balked. There
was but one thing to be done: to kill the person who had
just uttered it. Ogareff darted at Nadia; but the girl, a
knife in her hand, retreated against the wall, determined to
defend herself.
"Ivan Ogareff!" again cried Nadia, knowing well that
so detested a name would soon bring her help.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: atmosphere of dreams and fancies infecting all the land. Several
of the Sleepy Hollow people were present at Van Tassel's, and, as
usual, were doling out their wild and wonderful legends. Many
dismal tales were told about funeral trains, and mourning cries
and wailings heard and seen about the great tree where the
unfortunate Major Andre was taken, and which stood in the
neighborhood. Some mention was made also of the woman in white,
that haunted the dark glen at Raven Rock, and was often heard to
shriek on winter nights before a storm, having perished there in
the snow. The chief part of the stories, however, turned upon the
favorite spectre of Sleepy Hollow, the Headless Horseman, who had
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: SOCRATES: And when you speak of carpentering, you mean the art of making
wooden implements?
THEAETETUS: I do.
SOCRATES: In both cases you define the subject matter of each of the two
arts?
THEAETETUS: True.
SOCRATES: But that, Theaetetus, was not the point of my question: we
wanted to know not the subjects, nor yet the number of the arts or
sciences, for we were not going to count them, but we wanted to know the
nature of knowledge in the abstract. Am I not right?
THEAETETUS: Perfectly right.
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