| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War by Frederick A. Talbot: uphill struggle, and the Wurtemberg Government granted him the
proceeds of a lottery. With this money, and with what he
succeeded in raising by hook and by crook, and by mortgaging
his remaining property, a round L20,000 was obtained. With this
capital a third ship was taken in hand, and in 1905 it was
launched. It was a distinct improvement upon its predecessors.
The airship was 414 feet in length by 38 feet in diameter, was
equipped with 17 gas balloons having an aggregate capacity of
367,000 cubic feet of hydrogen, was equipped with two 85
horse-power motors driving four propellers, and displaced 9 tons.
All the imperfections incidental to the previous craft had been
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: For an instant I hung in mid air. There is a strange sensation
connected with an experience of that nature which is quite
difficult to describe. When the feet tread empty air
and the distance below is shrouded in darkness there is a
feeling akin to panic at the thought of releasing the hold and
taking the plunge into unknown depths.
Although the boy had told me that it was but ten feet to
the floor below I experienced the same thrills as though I
were hanging above a bottomless pit. Then I released my
hold and dropped--four feet to a soft cushion of sand.
The boy followed me.
The Gods of Mars |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy: seemed even gloomier than it was. His practice had been slowly
dwindling of late, and now threatened to die out altogether, the
irrepressible old Dr. Jones capturing patients up to Fitzpiers's
very door. Fitzpiers knew only too well the latest and greatest
cause of his unpopularity; and yet, so illogical is man, the
second branch of his sadness grew out of a remedial measure
proposed for the first--a letter from Felice Charmond imploring
him not to see her again. To bring about their severance still
more effectually, she added, she had decided during his absence
upon almost immediate departure for the Continent.
The time was that dull interval in a woodlander's life which
The Woodlanders |
