| 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: that was played out and growing tiresome.... If I could but sit
out the first few scenes of the new spectacle....
'How encumbered the world had become! It was ailing as I am
ailing with a growth of unmeaning things. It was entangled,
feverish, confused. It was in sore need of release, and I suppose
that nothing less than the violence of those bombs could have
released it and made it a healthy world again. I suppose they
were necessary. Just as everything turns to evil in a fevered
body so everything seemed turning to evil in those last years of
the old time. Everywhere there were obsolete organisations
seizing upon all the new fine things that science was giving to
The Last War: A World Set Free |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Heart of the West by O. Henry: Ranse, when my chunk goes out. I've made you. I've licked you into
shape like a leopard cat licks its cubs. You don't belong to yourself
--you've got to be a Truesdell first. Now, is there to be any more
nonsense about this Curtis girl?"
"I'll tell you once more," said Ranse, slowly. "As I am a Truesdell
and as you are my father, I'll never marry a Curtis."
"Good boy," said old "Kiowa." "You'd better go get some supper."
Ranse went to the kitchen at the rear of the house. Pedro, the Mexican
cook, sprang up to bring the food he was keeping warm in the stove.
"Just a cup of coffee, Pedro," he said, and drank it standing. And
then:
Heart of the West |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: young. He seems to have owned a ship or two - whalers, I
suppose, or coasters - and to have been a member of the Dundee
Trinity House, whatever that implies. On his death the widow
remained in Broughty, and the son came to push his future in
Edinburgh. There is a story told of him in the family which I
repeat here because I shall have to tell later on a similar,
but more perfectly authenticated, experience of his stepson,
Robert Stevenson. Word reached Thomas that his mother was
unwell, and he prepared to leave for Broughty on the morrow.
It was between two and three in the morning, and the early
northern daylight was already clear, when he awoke and beheld
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