| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Last War: A World Set Free by H. G. Wells: industrialism. The railways paid enormous premiums for priority
in the delivery of atomic traction engines, atomic smelting was
embarked upon so eagerly as to lead to a number of disastrous
explosions due to inexperienced handling of the new power, and
the revolutionary cheapening of both materials and electricity
made the entire reconstruction of domestic buildings a matter
merely dependent upon a reorganisation of the methods of the
builder and the house-furnisher. Viewed from the side of the new
power and from the point of view of those who financed and
manufactured the new engines and material it required the age of
the Leap into the Air was one of astonishing prosperity.
The Last War: A World Set Free |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Crito by Plato: CRITO: No, I came some time ago.
SOCRATES: Then why did you sit and say nothing, instead of at once
awakening me?
CRITO: I should not have liked myself, Socrates, to be in such great
trouble and unrest as you are--indeed I should not: I have been watching
with amazement your peaceful slumbers; and for that reason I did not awake
you, because I wished to minimize the pain. I have always thought you to
be of a happy disposition; but never did I see anything like the easy,
tranquil manner in which you bear this calamity.
SOCRATES: Why, Crito, when a man has reached my age he ought not to be
repining at the approach of death.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: Some of the cottonwoods had already turned, and the yellow
leaves and shining white bark made them look like the gold
and silver trees in fairy tales.
As we approached the Shimerdas' dwelling, I could still see
nothing but rough red hillocks, and draws with shelving banks
and long roots hanging out where the earth had crumbled away.
Presently, against one of those banks, I saw a sort of shed,
thatched with the same wine-coloured grass that grew everywhere.
Near it tilted a shattered windmill frame, that had no wheel.
We drove up to this skeleton to tie our horses, and then I saw
a door and window sunk deep in the drawbank. The door stood open,
My Antonia |
