| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: sight, and I must admit that cold shivers played along my
spine and the short hairs at the base of my head stiffened
and rose up, as do those upon a hound's neck when in the
night his eyes see those uncanny things which are hidden
from the sight of man.
Quickly I walked toward the mournful voice, but it had
ceased ere I reached the further wall, and then from the other
end of the chamber came another voice, shrill and piercing:
"Fools! Fools!" it shrieked. "Thinkest thou to defeat the
eternal laws of life and death? Wouldst cheat the mysterious
Issus, Goddess of Death, of her just dues? Did not her mighty
The Gods of Mars |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: and in this I succeeded. Then, after obtaining a verbal sanction from
the prefect, and by paying down the money, I had several of these
unfortunate creatures transported over to Aiguebelle, in Savoy, by
night. There are a great many of them there, and they were certain to
be very kindly treated. When this act of humanity came to be known,
the whole countryside looked upon me as a monster. The cure preached
against me. In spite of all the pains I took to explain to all the
shrewder heads of the little place the immense importance of being rid
of the idiots, and in spite of the fact that I gave my services
gratuitously to the sick people of the district, a shot was fired at
me from the corner of a wood.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: Britain has now chosen, will reward itself by opening a vast field for
capital and enterprise, for the introduction of civil and religious
liberty among the down-trodden peasantry of Egypt; as the Giaour becomes
an object of respect, and trust, and gratitude to the Moslem; and as the
feeling that Moslem and Giaour own a common humanity, a common eternal
standard of justice and mercy, a common sacred obligation to perform our
promises, and to succour the oppressed, shall have taken place of the
old brute wonder at our careless audacity, and awkward assertion of
power, which now expresses itself in the somewhat left-handed
Alexandrian compliment--"There is one Satan, and there are many Satans:
but there is no Satan like a Frank in a round hat."
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