| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Tapestried Chamber by Walter Scott: continued, "that it is the unhappy, though most unexpected,
result of an experiment of my own. You must know that, for my
father and grandfather's time, at least, the apartment which was
assigned to you last night had been shut on account of reports
that it was disturbed by supernatural sights and noises. When I
came, a few weeks since, into possession of the estate, I thought
the accommodation which the castle afforded for my friends was
not extensive enough to permit the inhabitants of the invisible
world to retain possession of a comfortable sleeping apartment.
I therefore caused the Tapestried Chamber, as we call it, to be
opened, and, without destroying its air of antiquity, I had such
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: man begins, as they did, displaying himself peacock-fashion, boasting of
his science as the great pursuit of humanity, and insulting his fellow-
craftsmen, he becomes, ipso facto, unable to discover any more truth for
us, having put on a habit of mind to which induction is impossible; and
is thenceforth to be passed by with a kindly but a pitying smile. And
so, indeed, it happened with these quarrelsome Alexandrian grammarians,
as it did with the Casaubons and Scaligers and Daciers of the last two
centuries. As soon as they began quarrelling they lost the power of
discovering. The want of the inductive faculty in their attempts at
philology is utterly ludicrous. Most of their derivations of words are
about on a par with Jacob Bohmen's etymology of sulphur, wherein he
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer: the bizarre figure crawling, beetle-like, across the inner room,
and the grim hub, around which all this ominous activity turned,
made up a scene that etched itself indelibly on my mind.
As we entered Dr. Cleeve straightened himself, frowning thoughtfully.
"Frankly, I do not care to venture any opinion at present regarding
the immediate cause of death," he said. "Sir Crichton was addicted
to cocaine, but there are indications which are not in accordance
with cocaine-poisoning. I fear that only a post-mortem can
establish the facts--if," he added, "we ever arrive at them.
A most mysterious case!"
Smith stepping forward and engaging the famous pathologist in conversation,
The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu |
