| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: it?"
"Oh," he almost passionately sighed, "if I were only, pen in hand,
one of YOU chaps!"
"That would be a great chance for you of course. But why should
you despise us chaps for not doing what you can't do yourself?"
"Can't do?" He opened his eyes. "Haven't I done it in twenty
volumes? I do it in my way," he continued. "Go YOU and don't do
it in yours."
"Ours is so devilish difficult," I weakly observed.
"So's mine. We each choose our own. There's no compulsion. You
won't come down and smoke?"
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: them is - what is it, but a live vulture's head, snapping and
snapping - what for?
Nay, reader, I am here to show you what can be seen: but as for
telling you what can be known, much more what cannot, I decline;
and refer you to Johnson's "Zoophytes," wherein you will find that
several species of polypes carry these same birds' heads: but
whether they be parts of the polype, and of what use they are, no
man living knoweth.
Next, what are the striped pears? They are sea-anemones, and of a
species only lately well known, Sagartia viduata, the snake-locked
anemone (Pl. V. Fig. 3(5)). They have been washed off the loose
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum: fowl weep with shame to own. What does it all mean? Am I a Gump, or am I a
juggernaut?" The creature, as it spoke, wiggled its chin whiskers in a very
comical manner.
"You're just a Thing," answered Tip, "with a Gump's head on it. And we have
made you and brought you to life so that you may carry us through the air
wherever we wish to go."
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"Very good!" said the Thing. "As I am not a Gump, I cannot have a Gump's
pride or independent spirit. So I may as well become your servant as
anything else. My only satisfaction is that I do not seem to have a very
strong constitution, and am not likely to live long in a state of slavery."
The Marvelous Land of Oz |
