| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: to inform us that we would be tried by an impartial body
of nobles in the great hall of the temple at the 1st
zode* on the following day, or about 8:40 A.M. Earth time.
*Wherever Captain Carter has used Martian measurements of time,
distance, weight, and the like I have translated them into as nearly their
equivalent in earthly values as is possible. His notes contain many
Martian tables, and a great volume of scientific data, but since the
International Astronomic Society is at present engaged in classifying,
investigating, and verifying this vast fund of remarkable and valuable
information, I have felt that it will add nothing to the interest of Captain
Carter's story or to the sum total of human knowledge to maintain a strict
The Gods of Mars |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Footnote to History by Robert Louis Stevenson: all men in turn were struck with their absurdity. Mullan, Leary's
successor, warned Knappe, in an emphatic despatch, not to squander
and discredit the solemnity of that emblem which was all he had to
be a defence to his own consulate. And Knappe himself, in his
despatch of March 21st, 1889, castigates the practice with much
sense. But this was after the tragicomic culmination had been
reached, and the burnt rags of one of these too-frequently
mendacious signals gone on a progress to Washington, like Caesar's
body, arousing indignation where it came. To such results are
nations conducted by the patent artifices of a Becker.
The discussion of the morning, the silent menace and defiance of
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: terrible because so long repressed. Human weaknesses are essentially
base; they allow of neither peace nor truce; what you yield to them
to-day they exact to-morrow, and always; they fasten on concessions
and compel more of them. Power, on the other hand, is merciful; it
conforms to evidence, it is just and it is peaceable. But the passions
born of weakness are implacable. Monsieur de Mortsauf takes an
absolute pleasure in getting the better of me; and he who would
deceive no one else, deceives me with delight."
One morning as we left the breakfast table, about a month after my
arrival, the countess took me by the arm, darted through an iron gate
which led into the vineyard, and dragged me hastily among the vines.
The Lily of the Valley |
