| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy: outside and roared down the vast chimney. Marguerite wondered if the
wind would be favourable for her journey. She had no fear of the
storm, and would have braved worse risks sooner than delay the
crossing by an hour.
A sudden commotion outside roused her from her meditations.
Evidently it was Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, just arrived in mad haste, for
she heard his horse's hoofs thundering on the flag-stones outside,
then Mr. Jellyband's sleepy, yet cheerful tones bidding him welcome.
For a moment, then, the awkwardness of her position struck
Marguerite; alone at this hour, in a place where she was well known,
and having made an assignation with a young cavalier equally well
The Scarlet Pimpernel |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: in the room emerged from the shadows and took their place
about me with the helpfulness which custom breeds.
I propped my book open and stared listlessly at the page
of the `Georgics' where tomorrow's lesson began.
It opened with the melancholy reflection that, in the lives
of mortals the best days are the first to flee.
'Optima dies ... prima fugit.' I turned back to the beginning
of the third book, which we had read in class that morning.
'Primus ego in patriam mecum ... deducam Musas'; `for I shall
be the first, if I live, to bring the Muse into my country.'
Cleric had explained to us that `patria' here meant, not a nation
My Antonia |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Time Machine by H. G. Wells: for instance, perhaps half the prettier country is shut in
against intrusion. And this same widening gulf--which is due
to the length and expense of the higher educational process and
the increased facilities for and temptations towards refined
habits on the part of the rich--will make that exchange between
class and class, that promotion by intermarriage which at present
retards the splitting of our species along lines of social
stratification, less and less frequent. So, in the end, above
ground you must have the Haves, pursuing pleasure and comfort and
beauty, and below ground the Have-nots, the Workers getting
continually adapted to the conditions of their labour. Once they
The Time Machine |
