| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley: and then he said his prayers and his creed; and then he tried not
to think of Rose Salterne, and of course thought about her all the
more. So on passed the dull hours, till it might be past eleven
o'clock, and all lights were out in the battery and the shipping,
and there was no sound of living thing but the monotonous tramp of
the two sentinels beside him, and now and then a grunt from the
party who slept under arms some twenty yards to the rear.
So he paced to and fro, looking carefully out now and then over the
strip of sand-hill which lay between him and the fort; but all was
blank and black, and moreover it began to rain furiously.
Suddenly he seemed to hear a rustle among the harsh sand-grass.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Critias by Plato: surrounding basin of the sea is everywhere deep in the neighbourhood of the
shore. Many great deluges have taken place during the nine thousand years,
for that is the number of years which have elapsed since the time of which
I am speaking; and during all this time and through so many changes, there
has never been any considerable accumulation of the soil coming down from
the mountains, as in other places, but the earth has fallen away all round
and sunk out of sight. The consequence is, that in comparison of what then
was, there are remaining only the bones of the wasted body, as they may be
called, as in the case of small islands, all the richer and softer parts of
the soil having fallen away, and the mere skeleton of the land being left.
But in the primitive state of the country, its mountains were high hills
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: tests the flowers with her tongue; she selects a spot that will
yield a good return. Soon she is wrapped up in her harvesting.
While she is filling her baskets and distending her crop, the
Thomisus, that bandit lurking under cover of the flowers, issues
from her hiding-place, creeps round behind the bustling insect,
steals up close and, with a sudden rush, nabs her in the nape of
the neck. In vain, the Bee protests and darts her sting at random;
the assailant does not let go.
Besides, the bite in the neck is paralysing, because the cervical
nerve-centres are affected. The poor thing's legs stiffen; and all
is over in a second. The murderess now sucks the victim's blood at
The Life of the Spider |
