| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne: of the Creator of all things."
"I can understand perfectly, sir, that your nets furnish excellent fish
for your table; I can understand also that you hunt aquatic game in your
submarine forests; but I cannot understand at all how a particle of meat,
no matter how small, can figure in your bill of fare."
"This, which you believe to be meat, Professor, is nothing else than
fillet of turtle. Here are also some dolphins' livers, which you
take to be ragout of pork. My cook is a clever fellow,
who excels in dressing these various products of the ocean.
Taste all these dishes. Here is a preserve of sea-cucumber,
which a Malay would declare to be unrivalled in the world;
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Euthydemus by Plato: greatest of them all.
What is that? he asked.
Fortune, Cleinias, I replied; which all, even the most foolish, admit to be
the greatest of goods.
True, he said.
On second thoughts, I added, how narrowly, O son of Axiochus, have you and
I escaped making a laughing-stock of ourselves to the strangers.
Why do you say so?
Why, because we have already spoken of good-fortune, and are but repeating
ourselves.
What do you mean?
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Father Damien by Robert Louis Stevenson: hyperbolical expression at the best. "He had no hand in the
reforms," he was "a coarse, dirty man"; these were your own words;
and you may think it possible that I am come to support you with
fresh evidence. In a sense, it is even so. Damien has been too
much depicted with a conventional halo and conventional features;
so drawn by men who perhaps had not the eye to remark or the pen to
express the individual; or who perhaps were only blinded and
silenced by generous admiration, such as I partly envy for myself -
such as you, if your soul were enlightened, would envy on your
bended knees. It is the least defect of such a method of
portraiture that it makes the path easy for the devil's advocate,
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