| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne: of the recoil produced by the pressure of the rocket apparatus.
The chances were in favor of the travelers. If its speed was
utterly annulled on this dead point, a decided movement toward
the moon would suffice, however slight, to determine its fall.
"Five minutes to one," said Nicholl.
"All is ready," replied Michel Ardan, directing a lighted match
to the flame of the gas.
"Wait!" said Barbicane, holding his chronometer in his hand.
At that moment weight had no effect. The travelers felt in
themselves the entire disappearance of it. They were very near
the neutral point, if they did not touch it.
From the Earth to the Moon |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne: curling his lips. "Yes, a rebel, perhaps an outlaw against humanity!"
The engineer was silent.
"Well, sir?"
"It is not for me to judge you, Captain Nemo," answered Cyrus Harding,
"at any rate as regards your past life. I am, with the rest of the world,
ignorant of the motives which induced you to adopt this strange mode of
existence, and I cannot judge of effects without knowing their causes; but
what I do know is, that a beneficent hand has constantly protected us since
our arrival on Lincoln Island, that we all owe our lives to a good,
generous, and powerful being, and that this being so powerful, good and
generous, Captain Nemo, is yourself!"
The Mysterious Island |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: sustained in their orbits by the law of gravitation. The theory
about natural selection may be untrue, or imperfect, as may the
modern theories of the "evolution and progress" of organic forms:
let the man of science decide that. But if true, the theories seem
to me perfectly to agree with, and may be perfectly explained by,
the simple old belief which the Bible sets before us, of a LIVING
GOD: not a mere past will, such as the Koran sets forth, creating
once and for all, and then leaving the universe, to use Goethe's
simile, "to spin round his finger;" nor again, an "all-pervading
spirit," words which are mere contradictory jargon, concealing,
from those who utter them, blank Materialism: but One who works in
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