| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Georgics by Virgil: Goes out in spate, and with its coat of slime
Holds all the country, whence the hollow dykes
Sweat steaming vapour?
But no whit the more
For all expedients tried and travail borne
By man and beast in turning oft the soil,
Do greedy goose and Strymon-haunting cranes
And succory's bitter fibres cease to harm,
Or shade not injure. The great Sire himself
No easy road to husbandry assigned,
And first was he by human skill to rouse
Georgics |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Statesman by Plato: YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: And if any one who is in a private station is able to advise the
ruler of a country, may not he be said to have the knowledge which the
ruler himself ought to have?
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: But surely the science of a true king is royal science?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: And will not he who possesses this knowledge, whether he happens
to be a ruler or a private man, when regarded only in reference to his art,
be truly called 'royal'?
YOUNG SOCRATES: He certainly ought to be.
Statesman |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells: leading London papers--he was singularly not adapted for inspiring
hall-porters with confidence--and he positively attempted to induce
the War Office to take up his work with him. There remains a
confidential letter from Major-General Volleyfire to the Earl of Frogs.
"The man's a crank and a bounder to boot," says the Major-General
in his bluff, sensible, army way, and so left it open for the Japanese
to secure, as they subsequently did, the priority in this side
of warfare--a priority they still to our great discomfort retain.
And then by a stroke of luck the membrane Filmer had invented for his
contractile balloon was discovered to be useful for the valves
of a new oil-engine, and he obtained the means for making a trial
|
