| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbot: Our Theology also in the Women's chambers is entirely different from
our Theology elsewhere.
Now my humble fear is that this double training, in language as well
as in thought, imposes somewhat too heavy a burden upon the young,
especially when, at the age of three years old, they are taken
from the maternal care and taught to unlearn the old language --
except for the purpose of repeating it in the presence of
their Mothers and Nurses -- and to learn the vocabulary and idiom
of science. Already methinks I discern a weakness in the grasp of
mathematical truth at the present time as compared with
the more robust intellect of our ancestors three hundred years ago.
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: in the contrary sense everything that was said to him.
Notwithstanding the little iron stove, the ink froze on the swing-
table in the cabin, and I found it more convenient to go ashore
stumbling over the arctic waste-land and shivering in glazed
tramcars in order to write my evening letter to my owners in a
gorgeous cafe in the centre of the town. It was an immense place,
lofty and gilt, upholstered in red plush, full of electric lights
and so thoroughly warmed that even the marble tables felt tepid to
the touch. The waiter who brought me my cup of coffee bore, by
comparison with my utter isolation, the dear aspect of an intimate
friend. There, alone in a noisy crowd, I would write slowly a
The Mirror of the Sea |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne: Thousands of threads like glass, formed of fluid lava, fell like rain upon
the island. The crater was again boiling with lava which overflowed the
back of the volcano. The torrent flowed along the surface of the hardened
tufa, and destroyed the few meager skeletons of trees which had withstood
the first eruption. The stream, flowing this time towards the southwest
shore of Lake Grant, stretched beyond Creek Glycerine, and invaded the
plateau of Prospect Heights. This last blow to the work of the colonists
was terrible. The mill, the buildings of the inner court, the stables, were
all destroyed. The affrighted poultry fled in all directions. Top and Jup
showed signs of the greatest alarm, as if their instinct warned them of an
impending catastrophe. A large number of the animals of the island had
The Mysterious Island |
