| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Professor by Charlotte Bronte: "England is something unique, as I have heard and read; my idea
of it is vague, and I want to go there to render my idea clear,
definite."
"Hum! How much of England do you suppose you could see if you
went there in the capacity of a teacher? A strange notion you
must have of getting a clear and definite idea of a country!
All you could see of Great Britain would be the interior of a
school, or at most of one or two private dwellings."
"It would be an English school; they would be English dwellings."
"Indisputably; but what then? What would be the value of
observations made on a scale so narrow?"
The Professor |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne: hesitate to venture onto the "Speedy's" deck, which the extinguished
lanterns now left in total darkness. He hoisted himself onto the cutwater,
and by the bowsprit arrived at the forecastle. Then, gliding among the
convicts stretched here and there, he made the round of the ship, and found
that the "Speedy" carried four guns, which would throw shot of from eight
to ten pounds in weight. He found also, on touching them that these guns
were breech-loaders. They were therefore, of modern make, easily used, and
of terrible effect.
As to the men lying on the deck, they were about ten in number, but it
was to be supposed that more were sleeping down below. Besides, by
listening to them, Ayrton had understood that there were fifty on board.
The Mysterious Island |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Enemies of Books by William Blades: These he ruthlessly extracts, frequently leaving the decapitated
carcase of the books, for which he cares not, behind him.
Unlike the destroyer Bagford, he has no useful object in view,
but simply follows a senseless kind of classification. For instance:
One set of volumes contains nothing but copper-plate engraved titles,
and woe betide the grand old Dutch folios of the seventeenth century
if they cross his path. Another is a volume of coarse or quaint titles,
which certainly answer the end of showing how idiotic and conceited
some authors have been. Here you find Dr. Sib's "Bowels opened
in Divers Sermons," 1650, cheek by jowl with the discourse attributed
falsely to Huntington, the Calvinist, "Die and be damned,"
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