| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain: satisfaction with the regnant system and propose to
change it, would have made the whole six shudder as
one man, it would have been so disloyal, so dishonor-
able, such putrid black treason. So to speak, I was
become a stockholder in a corporation where nine hun-
dred and ninety-four of the members furnished all the
money and did all the work, and the other six elected
themselves a permanent board of direction and took all
the dividends. It seemed to me that what the nine
hundred and ninety-four dupes needed was a new deal.
The thing that would have best suited the circus side
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lesser Hippias by Plato: HIPPIAS: To be sure; he would tell as many lies about number as about
other things.
SOCRATES: Then may we further assume, Hippias, that there are men who are
false about calculation and number?
HIPPIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Who can they be? For you have already admitted that he who is
false must have the ability to be false: you said, as you will remember,
that he who is unable to be false will not be false?
HIPPIAS: Yes, I remember; it was so said.
SOCRATES: And were you not yourself just now shown to be best able to
speak falsely about calculation?
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: inarticulate. It is man who, in a chance phrase, interprets the
elemental passion of his enemy. Thus there is another gale in my
memory, a thing of endless, deep, humming roar, moonlight, and a
spoken sentence.
It was off that other cape which is always deprived of its title as
the Cape of Good Hope is robbed of its name. It was off the Horn.
For a true expression of dishevelled wildness there is nothing like
a gale in the bright moonlight of a high latitude.
The ship, brought-to and bowing to enormous flashing seas,
glistened wet from deck to trucks; her one set sail stood out a
coal-black shape upon the gloomy blueness of the air. I was a
The Mirror of the Sea |
