| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: you shrug your shoulders to hear him talk?"
"He talks little, sir: what he does say is ever to the point. His
brain is first-rate, I should think not impressible, but vigorous."
"Is he an able man, then?"
"Truly able."
"A thoroughly educated man?"
"St. John is an accomplished and profound scholar."
"His manners, I think, you said are not to your taste?--priggish and
parsonic?"
"I never mentioned his manners; but, unless I had a very bad taste,
they must suit it; they are polished, calm, and gentlemanlike."
Jane Eyre |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Crito by Plato: the only one.
CRITO: Fear not--there are persons who are willing to get you out of
prison at no great cost; and as for the informers they are far from being
exorbitant in their demands--a little money will satisfy them. My means,
which are certainly ample, are at your service, and if you have a scruple
about spending all mine, here are strangers who will give you the use of
theirs; and one of them, Simmias the Theban, has brought a large sum of
money for this very purpose; and Cebes and many others are prepared to
spend their money in helping you to escape. I say, therefore, do not
hesitate on our account, and do not say, as you did in the court (compare
Apol.), that you will have a difficulty in knowing what to do with yourself
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Time Machine by H. G. Wells: unfathomable distance, and the slow inevitable drift of their
movements out of the unknown past into the unknown future. I
thought of the great precessional cycle that the pole of the
earth describes. Only forty times had that silent revolution
occurred during all the years that I had traversed. And during
these few revolutions all the activity, all the traditions, the
complex organizations, the nations, languages, literatures,
aspirations, even the mere memory of Man as I knew him, had been
swept out of existence. Instead were these frail creatures who
had forgotten their high ancestry, and the white Things of which
I went in terror. Then I thought of the Great Fear that was
The Time Machine |
