| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: THERE is one story of the wars of Rome which I have
always very much envied for England. Germanicus was going
down at the head of the legions into a dangerous river - on
the opposite bank the woods were full of Germans - when there
flew out seven great eagles which seemed to marshal the Romans
on their way; they did not pause or waver, but disappeared
into the forest where the enemy lay concealed. "Forward!"
cried Germanicus, with a fine rhetorical inspiration,
"Forward! and follow the Roman birds." It would be a very
heavy spirit that did not give a leap at such a signal, and a
very timorous one that continued to have any doubt of success.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: separate parts, upon which different hands had been employed, as in those
completed by a single master. Thus it is observable that the buildings
which a single architect has planned and executed, are generally more
elegant and commodious than those which several have attempted to improve,
by making old walls serve for purposes for which they were not originally
built. Thus also, those ancient cities which, from being at first only
villages, have become, in course of time, large towns, are usually but ill
laid out compared with the regularity constructed towns which a
professional architect has freely planned on an open plain; so that
although the several buildings of the former may often equal or surpass in
beauty those of the latter, yet when one observes their indiscriminate
Reason Discourse |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner: bloody nigger was, the day I saw him standing at my door, I'd have given
him one cartridge in the back of his head more than ever he reckoned for!"
Peter looked triumphantly at the stranger. This was his only story; and he
had told it a score of times round the camp fire for the benefit of some
new-comer. When this point was reached, a low murmur of applause and
sympathy always ran round the group: tonight there was quiet; the
stranger's large dark eyes watched the fire almost as though he heard
nothing.
"I shouldn't have minded so much," said Peter after a while, "though no man
likes to have his woman taken away from him; but she was going to have a
kid in a month or two--and so was the little one for anything I know; she
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