| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne: heart, I cannot return on yours. Since my son has not told
you his secret, I must keep it. Forgive me, Nadia; I can
never repay what you have done for me."
"Mother, I ask you nothing," replied Nadia.
All was thus explained to the old Siberian, all, even the
conduct of her son with regard to herself in the inn at
Omsk. There was no doubt that the young girl's com-
panion was Michael Strogoff, and that a secret mission in
the invaded country obliged him to conceal his quality of
the Czar's courier.
"Ah, my brave boy!" thought Marfa. "No, I will not
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: distinguish the circling undulations when they are half a dozen rods
in diameter. You can even detect a water-bug (Gyrinus) ceaselessly
progressing over the smooth surface a quarter of a mile off; for
they furrow the water slightly, making a conspicuous ripple bounded
by two diverging lines, but the skaters glide over it without
rippling it perceptibly. When the surface is considerably agitated
there are no skaters nor water-bugs on it, but apparently, in calm
days, they leave their havens and adventurously glide forth from the
shore by short impulses till they completely cover it. It is a
soothing employment, on one of those fine days in the fall when all
the warmth of the sun is fully appreciated, to sit on a stump on
Walden |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: gets such a stimulus to the highest and richest intellectual life
as was afforded to Eckermann by his daily intercourse with
Goethe? The breadth of culture and the perfection of training
exhibited by John Stuart Mill need not surprise us when we
recollect that his earlier days were spent in the society of
James Mill and Jeremy Bentham. And the remarkable extent of view,
the command of facts, and the astonishing productiveness of such
modern Frenchmen as Sainte-Beuve and Littre become explicable
when we reflect upon the circumstance that so many able and
brilliant men are collected in one city, where their minds may
continually and directly react upon each other. It is from the
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
