| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne: morals and politics may be discussed, and even solved.
Twenty-six minutes well employed are worth more than twenty-six
years in which nothing is done. Some seconds of a Pascal or a
Newton are more precious than the whole existence of a crowd of
raw simpletons----"
"And you conclude, then, you everlasting talker?" asked Barbicane.
"I conclude that we have twenty-six minutes left," replied Ardan.
"Twenty-four only," said Nicholl.
"Well, twenty-four, if you like, my noble captain," said Ardan;
"twenty-four minutes in which to investigate----"
"Michel," said Barbicane, "during the passage we shall have
From the Earth to the Moon |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Glasses by Henry James: which I had always been much of a devotee. I arrived too late for
the first act of "Lohengrin," but the second was just beginning,
and I gave myself up to it with no more than a glance at the house.
When it was over I treated myself, with my glass, from my place in
the stalls, to a general survey of the boxes, making doubtless on
their contents the reflections, pointed by comparison, that are
most familiar to the wanderer restored to London. There was the
common sprinkling of pretty women, but I suddenly noted that one of
these was far prettier than the others. This lady, alone in one of
the smaller receptacles of the grand tier and already the aim of
fifty tentative glasses, which she sustained with admirable
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: acquired in our time an importance which they never had before:
many of the greatest interests of mankind depend upon them. I
think that if the statesmen of aristocratic ages could sometimes
contemn forms with impunity, and frequently rise above them, the
statesmen to whom the government of nations is now confided ought
to treat the very least among them with respect, and not neglect
them without imperious necessity. In aristocracies the
observance of forms was superstitious; amongst us they ought to
be kept with a deliberate and enlightened deference.
Another tendency, which is extremely natural to democratic
nations and extremely dangerous, is that which leads them ta
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