| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tarzan the Untamed by Edgar Rice Burroughs: a tooth, the element of time entering but slightly into his
calculations.
Inwardly as well as outwardly Tarzan had reverted to beast
and in the lives of beasts, time, as a measurable aspect of
duration, has no meaning. The beast is actively interested
only in NOW, and as it is always NOW and always shall be, there
is an eternity of time for the accomplishment of objects. The
ape-man, naturally, had a slightly more comprehensive realiza-
tion of the limitations of time; but, like the beasts, he moved
with majestic deliberation when no emergency prompted him
to swift action.
Tarzan the Untamed |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: huge swirling world process in which we found ourselves. I always
look back with particular exasperation to the cessation of our
modern history at the year 1815. There it pulled up abruptly, as
though it had come upon something indelicate. . . .
But, after all, what would Topham or Flack have made of the huge
adjustments of the nineteenth century? Flack was the chief
cricketer on the staff; he belonged to that great cult which
pretends that the place of this or that county in the struggle for
the championship is a matter of supreme importance to boys. He
obliged us to affect a passionate interest in the progress of county
matches, to work up unnatural enthusiasms. What a fuss there would
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: where she had housed five hundred thousand francs' worth of furniture.
Wherefore Tullia never enters into explanations; she understands the
sovereign woman's reason to admiration.
" 'People made a good deal of fun of Cursy,' said she; 'but, as a
matter of fact, he found this house in the eighteenth century rouge-
box, powder, puffs, and spangles. He would never have thought of it
but for me,' she added, burying herself in the cushions in her
fireside corner.
"She delivered herself thus on her return from a first night. Du
Bruel's piece had succeeded, and she foresaw an avalanche of
criticisms. Tullia had her At Homes. Every Monday she gave a tea-
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