| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Sanitary and Social Lectures by Charles Kingsley: near Naples, to be stupefied, for the amusement of visitors, by
the carbonic acid gas of the Grotto, and brought to life again by
being dragged into the fresh air; nay, you are inflicting upon
yourselves the torments of the famous Black Hole of Calcutta:
and, if there was no chimney in the room, by which some fresh air
could enter, the candles would soon burn blue, as they do, you
know, when ghosts appear; your brains become disturbed; and you
yourselves ran the risk of becoming ghosts, and the candles of
actually going out.
Of this last fact there is no doubt; for if, instead of putting a
mouse into the box, you will put a lighted candle, and breathe
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The People That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: satisfaction upon their faces, and then, apparently for Ajor's
benefit, the chieftain swaggered to and fro a couple of times,
swinging his great arms and his bulky shoulders for all the
world like a drunken prize-fighter at a beach dancehall.
I saw that some reply was necessary, and so in a single motion,
I drew my gun, dropped it on the still quivering arrow and
pulled the trigger. At the sound of the report, the Kro-lu
leaped back and raised their weapons; but as I was smiling,
they took heart and lowered them again, following my eyes to
the tree; the shaft of their chief was gone, and through the
bole was a little round hole marking the path of my bullet.
The People That Time Forgot |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: transferred by accident to the more celebrated name of Plato, or of some
Platonist in the next generation who aspired to imitate his master. Not
that on grounds either of language or philosophy we should lightly reject
them. Some difference of style, or inferiority of execution, or
inconsistency of thought, can hardly be considered decisive of their
spurious character. For who always does justice to himself, or who writes
with equal care at all times? Certainly not Plato, who exhibits the
greatest differences in dramatic power, in the formation of sentences, and
in the use of words, if his earlier writings are compared with his later
ones, say the Protagoras or Phaedrus with the Laws. Or who can be expected
to think in the same manner during a period of authorship extending over
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