| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne: anything so "American."
[1] This is a purely French habit.
This affair settled, Barbicane and Nicholl had returned to the
window, and were watching the constellations. The stars looked
like bright points on the black sky. But from that side they
could not see the orb of night, which, traveling from east to
west, would rise by degrees toward the zenith. Its absence drew
the following remark from Ardan:
"And the moon; will she perchance fail at our rendezvous?"
"Do not alarm yourself," said Barbicane; "our future globe is at
its post, but we cannot see her from this side; let us open the other."
From the Earth to the Moon |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from From London to Land's End by Daniel Defoe: means they can. But this is a smaller matter, and of no great
import one way or other.
From this pleasant and agreeable day's work I returned to
Clarendon, and the next day took another short tour to the hills to
see that celebrated piece of antiquity, the wonderful Stonehenge,
being six miles from Salisbury, north, and upon the side of the
River Avon, near the town of Amesbury. It is needless that I
should enter here into any part of the dispute about which our
learned antiquaries have so puzzled themselves that several books
(and one of them in folio) have been published about it; some
alleging it to be a heathen or pagan temple and altar, or place of
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Walking by Henry David Thoreau: to know the individual. We are not prepared to believe that every
private soldier in a Roman army had a name of his own--because we
have not supposed that he had a character of his own.
At present our only true names are nicknames. I knew a boy who,
from his peculiar energy, was called "Buster" by his playmates,
and this rightly supplanted his Christian name. Some travelers
tell us that an Indian had no name given him at first, but earned
it, and his name was his fame; and among some tribes he acquired
a new name with every new exploit. It is pitiful when a man bears
a name for convenience merely, who has earned neither name nor
fame.
Walking |
