| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: our getting off in safety, as the boats got aground in the
creek and were in danger of being upset. Upon extinguishing
the torchlights, about twelve in number, the darkness of the
night seemed quite horrible; the water being also much charged
with the phosphorescent appearance which is familiar to every
one on shipboard, the waves, as they dashed upon the rock,
were in some degree like so much liquid flame. The scene,
upon the whole, was truly awful!
[Wednesday, 27th July]
In leaving the rock this evening everything, after the
torches were extinguished, had the same dismal appearance as
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War by Frederick A. Talbot: airman is more likely to prove successful. He keeps a vigilant
eye upon all ground-lights and by close observation is able to
determine their significance. It is for this reason that no
lights of any description are permitted in the advance trenches.
The striking of a match may easily betray a position to the alert
eye above.
So far as the British Army is concerned a complete code is in
operation for communicating between aeroplanes and the ground at
night. Very's lights are used for this purpose, it being
possible to distinguish the respective colours at a distance of
six miles and from an altitude of 2,000 feet. The lights are
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: days, months, years, the military divisions of an army, the civil divisions
of a state, seemed to afford a 'present witness' of them--what would have
become of man or of the world if deprived of number (Rep.)? The mystery of
number and the mystery of music were akin. There was a music of rhythm and
of harmonious motion everywhere; and to the real connexion which existed
between music and number, a fanciful or imaginary relation was superadded.
There was a music of the spheres as well as of the notes of the lyre. If
in all things seen there was number and figure, why should they not also
pervade the unseen world, with which by their wonderful and unchangeable
nature they seemed to hold communion?
Two other points strike us in the use which the ancient philosophers made
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