| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Under the Andes by Rex Stout: their reach, as I promised. I have reproached myself bitterly,
Hal; you need add nothing."
"Do you think I would? Only--there is something else. About
what she said to you. I knew that, you know."
I was silent; he continued:
"I knew it long ago. Do you think I am blind? And I want to
say this while I have a chance--it was uncommon good of you. To
take it the way you did, I mean."
His simplicity made me uncomfortable, and I made no answer.
Indeed, the thing was beyond discussion; it was merely a bare fact
which, when once stated, left nothing to be said. So I refused to
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne: No reflection of light, no sound from inhabited land, no roaring of the
ocean could have reached them, through the obscurity, while suspended in
those elevated zones. Their rapid descent alone had informed them of the
dangers which they ran from the waves. However, the balloon, lightened of
heavy articles, such as ammunition, arms, and provisions, had risen into
the higher layers of the atmosphere, to a height of 4,500 feet. The
voyagers, after having discovered that the sea extended beneath them, and
thinking the dangers above less dreadful than those below, did not hesitate
to throw overboard even their most useful articles, while they endeavored
to lose no more of that fluid, the life of their enterprise, which
sustained them above the abyss.
The Mysterious Island |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Crowd by Gustave le Bon: fictitious shapes is far more important than that of the real
shapes, for it is they and they alone that we see and that can be
reproduced by photography or in pictures. In certain cases there
is more truth in the unreal than in the real. To present objects
with their exact geometrical forms would be to distort nature and
render it unrecognisable. If we imagine a world whose
inhabitants could only copy or photograph objects, but were
unable to touch them, it would be very difficult for such persons
to attain to an exact idea of their form. Moreover, the
knowledge of this form, accessible only to a small number of
learned men, would present but a very minor interest.
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