| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: of numbers, you have adorned it with hieroglyphics scientifically
arranged and painted, and you cry out, 'All is here!'
"Let us pass from pure, unmingled Number to corporate Number. Your
geometry establishes that a straight line is the shortest way from one
point to another, but your astronomy proves that God has proceeded by
curves. Here, then, we find two truths equally proved by the same
science,--one by the testimony of your senses reinforced by the
telescope, the other by the testimony of your mind; and yet the one
contradicts the other. Man, liable to err, affirms one, and the Maker
of the worlds, whom, so far, you have not detected in error,
contradicts it. Who shall decide between rectalinear and curvilinear
Seraphita |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs: The next time they appeared the other arm was gone,
and then the breasts, and then a part of the face--it
was awful. The poor creatures on the islands awaiting
their fate tried to cover their eyes with their hands
to hide the fearful sight, but now I saw that they too
were under the hypnotic spell of the reptiles, so that
they could only crouch in terror with their eyes fixed
upon the terrible thing that was transpiring before them.
Finally the queen was under much longer than ever before,
and when she rose she came alone and swam sleepily
toward her bowlder. The moment she mounted it seemed
At the Earth's Core |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: the carcase thrown into deep water outside the reefs; for who on
earth would have inquired after Bamtz?
"He had been known to loaf up and down the wilderness as far north
as the Gulf of Tonkin. Neither did he disdain a spell of
civilisation from time to time. And it was while loafing and
cadging in Saigon, bearded and dignified (he gave himself out there
as a bookkeeper), that he came across Laughing Anne.
"The less said of her early history the better, but something must
be said. We may safely suppose there was very little heart left in
her famous laugh when Bamtz spoke first to her in some low cafe.
She was stranded in Saigon with precious little money and in great
Within the Tides |
