| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Off on a Comet by Jules Verne: Captain Servadac came to the conclusion that, as the earth was now receiving
about double the amount of light and heat that it had been receiving
before the catastrophe, it was receiving about the same as the planet Venus;
he was driven, therefore, to the estimate of the measure in which the earth
must have approximated to the sun, a deduction in which he was confirmed
when the opportunity came for him to observe Venus herself in the splendid
proportions that she now assumed.
That magnificent planet which--as Phosphorus or Lucifer, Hesperus or Vesper,
the evening star, the morning star, or the shepherd's star--has never failed
to attract the rapturous admiration of the most indifferent observers,
here revealed herself with unprecedented glory, exhibiting all the phases
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from War and the Future by H. G. Wells: began. These aeroplanes were in constant action; they fought,
they were shot down, they had their share of accidents. Not only
did the repair department make good every loss, but after three
weeks of the offensive the army was fighting with fifty more
machines than at the outset. One goes through a vast
Rembrandtesque shed opening upon a great sunny field, in whose
cool shadows rest a number of interesting patients; captured and
slightly damaged German machines, machines of our own with scars
of battle upon them, one or two cases of bad landing. The star
case came over from Peronne. It had come in two days ago.
I examined this machine and I will tell the state it was in, but
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: every sort of weather, and drives sitting bowed low
over the reins, his lank grey hair curling over the
collar of his warm coat, and with a green plaid rug
round his legs. The calmness of advanced age
gives a solemnity to his manner. He is clean-
shaved; his lips are thin and sensitive; something
rigid and monarchal in the set of his features lends
a certain elevation to the character of his face. He
has been known to drive miles in the rain to see a
new kind of rose in somebody's garden, or a mon-
strous cabbage grown by a cottager. He loves to
Amy Foster |
