| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: ether is wrapped up in the well-established undulatory theory of
light. Such is by no means the case with Sir William Thomson's
vortex-atom theory, which to-day is in somewhat the same
condition as the undulatory theory of Huyghens two centuries ago.
This, however, is none the less a hypothesis truly scientific in
conception, and in the speculations to which it leads us we are
still sure of dealing with views that admit at least of definite
expression and treatment. In other words, though our study of the
visible universe has led us to the recognition of a kind of
unseen world underlying the world of things that are seen, yet
concerning the economy of this unseen world we have not been led
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Dreams & Dust by Don Marquis: I could not see the moon itself;
I walked through darkness, and the valley's edge
Seemed almost level with the stars,
The stars that were like fireflies in the little trees.
It was the midnight of defeat;
I felt that I had failed;
I was mocked of the gods;
There was no way out of that gorge;
The paths led no whither
And I could not remember their beginnings;
I was doomed to wander evermore,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Hellenica by Xenophon: had been poured out--the god sent an earthquake; and with one consent
the Lacedaemonians, beginning with the officers of the royal quarters,
sang the sacred hymn of Poseidon. The soldiers, in general, expected
to retreat, arguing that, on the occurrence of an earthquake once
before, Agis had retired from Elis. But Agesipolis held another view:
if the god had sent his earthquake at the moment when he was
meditating invasion, he should have understood that the god forbade
his entrance; but now, when the invasion was a thing effected, he must
needs take it as a signal of his approval.[6] Accordingly next morning
he sacrificed to Poseidon, and advanced a short distance further into
the country.
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