| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Time Machine by H. G. Wells: Even now man is far less discriminating and exclusive in his food
than he was--far less than any monkey. His prejudice against
human flesh is no deep-seated instinct. And so these inhuman
sons of men----! I tried to look at the thing in a scientific
spirit. After all, they were less human and more remote than our
cannibal ancestors of three or four thousand years ago. And the
intelligence that would have made this state of things a torment
had gone. Why should I trouble myself? These Eloi were mere
fatted cattle, which the ant-like Morlocks preserved and preyed
upon--probably saw to the breeding of. And there was Weena
dancing at my side!
The Time Machine |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Schoolmistress and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov: is true I have not seen the earth nor men, but in your books I
have drunk fragrant wine, I have sung songs, I have hunted stags
and wild boars in the forests, have loved women. . . .
Beauties as ethereal as clouds, created by the magic of your
poets and geniuses, have visited me at night, and have whispered
in my ears wonderful tales that have set my brain in a whirl. In
your books I have climbed to the peaks of Elburz and Mont
Blanc, and from there I have seen the sun rise and have watched
it at evening flood the sky, the ocean, and the mountain-tops
with gold and crimson. I have watched from there the lightning
flashing over my head and cleaving the storm-clouds. I have
The Schoolmistress and Other Stories |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: but we lost a great many men and some ships. But, as I observed, the
plague was not in the fleet, and when they came to lay up the ships in
the river the violent part of it began to abate.
I would be glad if I could close the account of this melancholy year
with some particular examples historically; I mean of the thankfulness
to God, our preserver, for our being delivered from this dreadful
calamity. Certainly the circumstance of the deliverance, as well as the
terrible enemy we were delivered from, called upon the whole nation
for it. The circumstances of the deliverance were indeed very
remarkable, as I have in part mentioned already, and particularly the
dreadful condition which we were all in when we were to the surprise
A Journal of the Plague Year |
