| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: a thin chirp, unmusical and monotonous, but friendly and
pleasant to hear. He had but one rival: a fellow with an
ostentatious cry of near an octave descending, not one note
of which properly followed another. This is the only bird I
ever knew with a wrong ear; but there was something
enthralling about his performance. You listened and
listened, thinking each time he must surely get it right; but
no, it was always wrong, and always wrong the same way. Yet
he seemed proud of his song, delivered it with execution and
a manner of his own, and was charming to his mate. A very
incorrect, incessant human whistler had thus a chance of
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The First Men In The Moon by H. G. Wells: light that came through the doorway, and it seemed as though he vanished
altogether in the shadow.
For a moment my eyes sought him in the wrong place, and then I perceived
him standing facing us both in the full light. Only the human features I
had attributed to him were not there at all!
Of course I ought to have expected that, only I didn't. It came to me as
an absolute, for a moment an overwhelming shock. It seemed as though it
wasn't a face, as though it must needs be a mask, a horror, a deformity,
that would presently be disavowed or explained. There was no nose, and the
thing had dull bulging eyes at the side - in the silhouette I had supposed
they were ears. There were no ears. ... I have tried to draw one of these
The First Men In The Moon |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Rezanov by Gertrude Atherton: and ask that he lay the matter before the Cabinet
and King. Without that high authority we can do
nothing. But I see no reason to doubt the issue when
we, who know the wants and needs of California,
approve and desire. We are doomed to failure in
this unwieldy land of worthless savages, but it is the
business of the wretched servants of a glorious mon-
arch to do the best they can."
Rezanov had an inspiration. "You might remind
the viceroy that Spain and the United States of
America have been on the verge of war for years,
Rezanov |
