| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War by Frederick A. Talbot: peripatetic circuses and travelling exhibitions. There is a
network of vertical steel members which may be set with facility
and speed and which are stayed by means of wire guys. At the top
of the outer vertical posts pulleys are provided whereby the
outer skin or canvas forming the walls may be hauled into
position, while at the apex of the roof further pulleys ensure
the proper placing of the roofing. The airship is able to enter
or leave from either end according to conditions. The material
is fireproofed as a precautionary measure, but at the same time
the modern aerial bomb is able to penetrate the roofing without
any difficulty and to explode against the airship anchored
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: partially excusable. My ill-health makes my rate of life heavier
than I can well meet, and yet stops me from earning more. My
conscience, sometimes perhaps too easily stifled, but still (for my
time of life and the public manners of the age) fairly well alive,
forces me to perpetual and almost endless transcriptions. On the
back of all this, my correspondence hangs like a thundercloud; and
just when I think I am getting through my troubles, crack, down
goes my health, I have a long, costly sickness, and begin the world
again. It is fortunate for me I have a father, or I should long
ago have died; but the opportunity of the aid makes the necessity
none the more welcome. My father has presented me with a beautiful
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Memorabilia by Xenophon: compelled to discuss for the benefits of their paymasters. What
surprised him was that any one possessing virtue should deign to ask
money as its price instead of simply finding his rward in the
acquisition of an honest friend, as if the new-fledged soul of honour
could forget her debt of gratitude to her greatest benefactor.
For himself, without making any such profession, he was content to
believe that those who accepted his views would play their parts as
good and true friends to himself and one another their lives long.
Once more then: how should a man of this character corrupt the young?
unless the careful cultivation of virtue be corruption.
But, says the accuser,[2] by all that's sacred! did not Socrates cause
The Memorabilia |
