| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Time Machine by H. G. Wells: attained must have long since passed its zenith, and was now far
fallen into decay. The too-perfect security of the
Upper-worlders had led them to a slow movement of degeneration,
to a general dwindling in size, strength, and intelligence. That
I could see clearly enough already. What had happened to the
Under-grounders I did not yet suspect; but from what I had seen
of the Morlocks--that, by the by, was the name by which these
creatures were called--I could imagine that the modification of
the human type was even far more profound than among the "Eloi,"
the beautiful race that I already knew.
`Then came troublesome doubts. Why had the Morlocks taken my
The Time Machine |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sophist by Plato: movement of the world rather than the personalities which conceived them?
The great man is the expression of his time, and there may be peculiar
difficulties in his age which he cannot overcome. He may be out of harmony
with his circumstances, too early or too late, and then all his thoughts
perish; his genius passes away unknown. But not therefore is he to be
regarded as a mere waif or stray in human history, any more than he is the
mere creature or expression of the age in which he lives. His ideas are
inseparable from himself, and would have been nothing without him. Through
a thousand personal influences they have been brought home to the minds of
others. He starts from antecedents, but he is great in proportion as he
disengages himself from them or absorbs himself in them. Moreover the
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Dracula by Bram Stoker: She spoke her comment very gravely and somewhat severely.
"Ye don't see aught funny! Ha-ha! But that's because ye
don't gawm the sorrowin'mother was a hell-cat that hated him
because he was acrewk'd, a regular lamiter he was, an' he hated
her so that he committed suicide in order that she mightn't
get an insurance she put on his life. He blew nigh the top
of his head off with an old musket that they had for scarin'
crows with. `twarn't for crows then, for it brought the clegs
and the dowps to him. That's the way he fell off the rocks.
And, as to hopes of a glorious resurrection, I've often heard
him say masel' that he hoped he'd go to hell, for his mother
Dracula |
