| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne: gazed upon the sea that had swallowed up one of his companions, and great
tears gathered in his eyes.
CHAPTER XIX
THE GULF STREAM
This terrible scene of the 20th of April none of us can ever forget.
I have written it under the influence of violent emotion. Since then I
have revised the recital; I have read it to Conseil and to the Canadian.
They found it exact as to facts, but insufficient as to effect.
To paint such pictures, one must have the pen of the most illustrious
of our poets, the author of The Toilers of the Deep.
I have said that Captain Nemo wept while watching the waves;
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: found himself, when he had at last stood by it, beguiled into long
intensities. He stood for an hour, powerless to turn away and yet
powerless to penetrate the darkness of death; fixing with his eyes
her inscribed name and date, beating his forehead against the fact
of the secret they kept, drawing his breath, while he waited, as if
some sense would in pity of him rise from the stones. He kneeled
on the stones, however, in vain; they kept what they concealed; and
if the face of the tomb did become a face for him it was because
her two names became a pair of eyes that didn't know him. He gave
them a last long look, but no palest light broke.
CHAPTER VI
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: There is just one thing which the Athenians lack. Supposing that they
were the inhabitants of an island,[16] and were still, as now, rulers
of the sea, they would have had it in their power to work whatever
mischief they liked, and to suffer no evil in return (as long as they
kept command of the sea), neither the ravaging of their territory nor
the expectation of an enemy's approach. Whereas at present the farming
portion of the community and the wealthy landowners are ready[17] to
cringe before the enemy overmuch, whilst the People, knowing full well
that, come what may, not one stock or stone of their property will
suffer, nothing will be cut down, nothing burnt, lives in freedom from
alarm, without fawning at the enemy's approach. Besides this, there is
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