| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: what passed in the grand council. But he was pleased to conceal
one particular, which related personally to myself, whereof I
soon felt the unhappy effect, as the reader will know in its
proper place, and whence I date all the succeeding misfortunes of
my life.
The HOUYHNHNMS have no letters, and consequently their knowledge
is all traditional. But there happening few events of any moment
among a people so well united, naturally disposed to every
virtue, wholly governed by reason, and cut off from all commerce
with other nations, the historical part is easily preserved
without burdening their memories. I have already observed that
Gulliver's Travels |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: younger than her cousin, and bedecked with diamonds; young Rabourdin,
employed in the Finance Office; Monsieur Cesar Birotteau, the rich
perfumer, and his wife, known as Madame Cesar; Monsieur Camusot, the
richest silk mercer in the Rue des Bourdonnais, with his father-in-
law, Monsieur Cardot, two or three old bankers, and some immaculate
ladies--the arrangements, made necessary by the way in which
everything was packed away--the plate, the Dresden china, the
candlesticks, and the glass--made a variety in the monotonous lives of
the three women, who came and went and exerted themselves as nuns
would to receive their bishop. Then, in the evening, when all three
were tired out with having wiped, rubbed, unpacked, and arranged all
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: nature with half-human inhabitants. Under its quickening fancy the
very clods grew sentient. Dumb earth awoke at the call of its
desire, and the beings its own poesy had begotten made merry
companionship for man. Then a change crept over the face of things.
Faith began to flicker, for want of facts to feed its flame. Little
by little the fires of devotion burnt themselves out. At last great
Pan died. The body of the old belief was consumed. But though it
perished, its ashes preserved its form, an unsubstantial presentment
of the past, to crumble in a twinkling at the touch of science, but
keeping yet to the poet's eye the lifelike semblance of what once
had been. The dead gods still live in our language and our art.
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