| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Essays of Francis Bacon by Francis Bacon: their decay in valor, encourageth a war.
As for the weapons, it hardly falleth under rule
and observation: yet we see even they, have re-
turns and vicissitudes. For certain it is, that ord-
nance was known in the city of the Oxidrakes in
India; and was that, which the Macedonians
called thunder and lightning, and magic. And it
is well known that the use of ordnance, hath been
in China above two thousand years. The conditions
of weapons, and their improvement, are; First, the
fetching afar off; for that outruns the danger; as
Essays of Francis Bacon |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic: an old weekly newspaper by the light of the kitchen lamp,
to the effect that he fancied there would be no great
danger in putting those roses back into her bonnet.
Without lifting her eyes from the paper, she answered
that she had no earthly desire to wear roses in her bonnet,
and went on with her reading.
At breakfast the next morning Theron found himself
in command of an unusual fund of humorous good spirits,
and was at pains to make the most of it, passing whimsical
comments on subjects which the opening day suggested,
recalling quaint and comical memories of the past,
The Damnation of Theron Ware |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: will never hear him.' The man presented himself as a voice.
Not of course that I did not connect him with some sort of action.
Hadn't I been told in all the tones of jealousy and admiration
that he had collected, bartered, swindled, or stolen more ivory
than all the other agents together? That was not the point.
The point was in his being a gifted creature, and that of all his
gifts the one that stood out preeminently, that carried with it
a sense of real presence, was his ability to talk, his words--
the gift of expression, the bewildering, the illuminating,
the most exalted and the most contemptible, the pulsating
stream of light, or the deceitful flow from the heart of
Heart of Darkness |
