| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War by Frederick A. Talbot: for the purpose of checking and counterchecking information
gained, or to ensure such data being brought back to
headquarters, since it is quite possible that one of the party
may fall a victim to hostile fire. By operating upon these
lines there is very little likelihood of the mission proving
a complete failure. Even when raids upon certain places
such as Dusseldorf, Friedrichshafen or Cuxhaven are planned,
complete dependence is not placed on one individual. The machine
is accompanied, so that the possibility of the appointed task
being consummated is transformed almost into a certainty.
The French flying men work upon broadly similar lines. Their
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: of river ports, does not possess as much as a hundred yards of open
quays upon its river front. Dark and impenetrable at night, like
the face of a forest, is the London waterside. It is the waterside
of watersides, where only one aspect of the world's life can be
seen, and only one kind of men toils on the edge of the stream.
The lightless walls seem to spring from the very mud upon which the
stranded barges lie; and the narrow lanes coming down to the
foreshore resemble the paths of smashed bushes and crumbled earth
where big game comes to drink on the banks of tropical streams.
Behind the growth of the London waterside the docks of London
spread out unsuspected, smooth, and placid, lost amongst the
The Mirror of the Sea |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Hiero by Xenophon: the tyrant knows precisely the reverse; as soon as he arrives in his
own city, he will find himself in the centre of hostility at once. Or
let us suppose that an invading army, superior in force, is marching
against a city: however much the weaker population, whilst they are
still outside their walls, may feel the stress of danger, yet once
within their trenches one and all expect to find themselves in
absolute security. But the tyrant is not out of danger, even when he
has passed the portals of his palace. Nay! there of all places most,
he feels, he must maintain the strictist watch.[7] Again, to the
private citizen there will come eventually, either through truce or
terms of peace, respite from war; but for the tyrant, the day of peace
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