| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne: say about once a year, could you not send us a shell packed
with provisions, which we might expect on some appointed day?"
"Hurrah! hurrah!" cried J. T. Matson; "what an ingenious fellow!
what a splendid idea! Indeed, my good friends, we shall not
forget you!"
"I shall reckon upon you! Then, you see, we shall receive news
regularly from the earth, and we shall indeed be stupid if we
hit upon no plan for communicating with our good friends here!"
These words inspired such confidence, that Michel Ardan carried
all the Gun Club with him in his enthusiasm. What he said
seemed so simple and so easy, so sure of success, that none
From the Earth to the Moon |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Troll Garden and Selected Stories by Willa Cather: forgotten how long I had been away. She was further troubled
because she had neglected to tell her daughter about the freshly
opened kit of mackerel in the cellar, which would spoil if it
were not used directly.
I asked her whether she had ever heard any of the Wagnerian
operas and found that she had not, though she was perfectly
familiar with their respective situations, and had once possessed
the piano score of The Flying Dutchman. I began to think it
would have been best to get her back to Red Willow County without
waking her, and regretted having suggested the concert.
From the time we entered the concert hall, however, she was
The Troll Garden and Selected Stories |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: cascade in Cernay valley. Even Fontainebleau was chosen for him;
even in Fontainebleau he shrinks from what is sharply charactered.
But one thing, at least, is certain, whatever he may choose to
paint and in whatever manner, it is good for the artist to dwell
among graceful shapes. Fontainebleau, if it be but quiet scenery,
is classically graceful; and though the student may look for
different qualities, this quality, silently present, will educate
his hand and eye.
But, before all its other advantages - charm, loveliness, or
proximity to Paris - comes the great fact that it is already
colonised. The institution of a painters' colony is a work of time
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