| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson: weak.
"'I will trouble you not to lay hands on me again,' said I.
"'I have no such thought,' said he, 'nor will I deprive you of your
dollar. Here it is,' he said, and flung it at my feet. I am told
it lay where it fell three days."
"I must say it was well played, said I.
"O! he is clever," said Mr. Tarleton, "and you can now see for
yourself how dangerous. He was a party to the horrid death of the
paralytic; he is accused of poisoning Adams; he drove Vigours out
of the place by lies that might have led to murder; and there is no
question but he has now made up his mind to rid himself of you.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: That, if you care to know, is the next question.
HERMOGENES: Certainly, I care to know.
SOCRATES: Then reflect.
HERMOGENES: How shall I reflect?
SOCRATES: The true way is to have the assistance of those who know, and
you must pay them well both in money and in thanks; these are the Sophists,
of whom your brother, Callias, has--rather dearly--bought the reputation of
wisdom. But you have not yet come into your inheritance, and therefore you
had better go to him, and beg and entreat him to tell you what he has
learnt from Protagoras about the fitness of names.
HERMOGENES: But how inconsistent should I be, if, whilst repudiating
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells: the beast's habits were not all that is desirable.
"I rested from work for some days after this, and was in a mind to
write an account of the whole affair to wake up English physiology.
Then I came upon the creature squatting up in a tree and gibbering
at two of the Kanakas who had been teasing him. I threatened him,
told him the inhumanity of such a proceeding, aroused his sense of shame,
and came home resolved to do better before I took my work back to England.
I have been doing better. But somehow the things drift back again:
the stubborn beast-flesh grows day by day back again.
But I mean to do better things still. I mean to conquer that.
This puma--
The Island of Doctor Moreau |
