| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells: and had it not been for the silent desertion of some of the
houses, the stirring movement of packing in others, and the
knot of soldiers standing on the bridge over the railway and
staring down the line towards Woking, the day would have
seemed very like any other Sunday.
Several farm waggons and carts were moving creakily
along the road to Addlestone, and suddenly through the gate
of a field we saw, across a stretch of flat meadow, six twelve-
pounders standing neatly at equal distances pointing towards
Woking. The gunners stood by the guns waiting, and the
ammunition waggons were at a business-like distance. The
War of the Worlds |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy: "Don't you tell anybody, will you, Mr. Winterborne?" she pleaded,
by way of answer. "Because I am afraid Mr. Melbury may refuse my
work if he knows it is mine."
"But how could you learn to do it? 'Tis a trade."
"Trade!" said she. "I'd be bound to learn it in two hours."
"Oh no, you wouldn't, Mrs. Marty." Winterborne held down his
lantern, and examined the cleanly split hazels as they lay.
"Marty," he said, with dry admiration, "your father with his forty
years of practice never made a spar better than that. They are
too good for the thatching of houses--they are good enough for the
furniture. But I won't tell. Let me look at your hands--your
The Woodlanders |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: avoided, no money he stinted, no excuse whether of age or body he
admitted, but deemed it ever the true function of a good king[2] to
shower blessings to the utmost on the subjects of his rule.
[1] Lit. "love for his own city."
[2] Or, "regarded it as the cardinal virtue of a real prince." See
"Mem." III. ii. 3.
And for my part I hold it as chief among the magnificent benefits so
conferred by him upon his country that, being the most powerful member
of the state, he made no secret of his absolute submission to the
laws,[3] since what lesser man, seeing the king's obedience, would
take[4] on himself to disobey? Who, in discontentment at his own poor
|
