| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: Otto shook the ashes out of his pipe and squatted down
to count the rattles. `It was just luck you had a tool,'
he said cautiously. `Gosh! I wouldn't want to do any business
with that fellow myself, unless I had a fence-post along.
Your grandmother's snake-cane wouldn't more than tickle him.
He could stand right up and talk to you, he could.
Did he fight hard?'
Antonia broke in: `He fight something awful! He is all over Jimmy's boots.
I scream for him to run, but he just hit and hit that snake like
he was crazy.'
Otto winked at me. After Antonia rode on he said:
My Antonia |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Parmenides by Plato: changes take place? When does motion become rest, or rest motion? The
answer to this question will throw a light upon all the others. Nothing
can be in motion and at rest at the same time; and therefore the change
takes place 'in a moment'--which is a strange expression, and seems to mean
change in no time. Which is true also of all the other changes, which
likewise take place in no time.
1.aa. But if one is, what happens to the others, which in the first place
are not one, yet may partake of one in a certain way? The others are other
than the one because they have parts, for if they had no parts they would
be simply one, and parts imply a whole to which they belong; otherwise each
part would be a part of many, and being itself one of them, of itself, and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: They eyed me with malignant fury, yet withal there was
a touch of respect in their demeanour.
"Thern," said one, "you fight like a Dator. But for your
detestable yellow hair and your white skin you would be an
honour to the First Born of Barsoom."
"I am no thern," I said, and was about to explain that I was
from another world, thinking that by patching a truce with
these fellows and fighting with them against the therns I
might enlist their aid in regaining my liberty. But just at that
moment a heavy object smote me a resounding whack between
my shoulders that nearly felled me to the ground.
The Gods of Mars |
