| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Last War: A World Set Free by H. G. Wells: politician to put my crown and my flag and my claims and so forth
in the way of peace? That little Frenchman is right. You know he
is right as well as I do. Those things are over. We--we kings
and rulers and representatives have been at the very heart of the
mischief. Of course we imply separation, and of course
separation means the threat of war, and of course the threat of
war means the accumulation of more and more atomic bombs. The old
game's up. But, I say, we mustn't stand here, you know. The
world waits. Don't you think the old game's up, Firmin?'
Firmin adjusted a strap, passed a hand over his wet forehead, and
followed earnestly. 'I admit, sir,' he said to a receding back,
The Last War: A World Set Free |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: that I had brought with me relief of sundry kinds for them; that I
had been at a great charge to supply them with all things
necessary, as well for their convenience as their defence; and that
I had such and such particular persons with me, as well to increase
and recruit their number, as by the particular necessary
employments which they were bred to, being artificers, to assist
them in those things in which at present they were in want.
They were all together when I talked thus to them; and before I
delivered to them the stores I had brought, I asked them, one by
one, if they had entirely forgot and buried the first animosities
that had been among them, and would shake hands with one another,
Robinson Crusoe |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Time Machine by H. G. Wells: coming upon me, by regarding it as a rigorous punishment of human
selfishness. Man had been content to live in ease and delight
upon the labours of his fellow-man, had taken Necessity as his
watchword and excuse, and in the fullness of time Necessity had
come home to him. I even tried a Carlyle-like scorn of this
wretched aristocracy in decay. But this attitude of mind was
impossible. However great their intellectual degradation, the
Eloi had kept too much of the human form not to claim my
sympathy, and to make me perforce a sharer in their degradation
and their Fear.
`I had at that time very vague ideas as to the course I should
The Time Machine |
