| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: burst in upon the company, that they may begin before the fish
is spoiled! They wait for you; and it is little for your interest
that they should wait. These gentlemen--need you be told it?
--have assembled, not without purpose, from every quarter of
the State. They are practised politicians, every man of them,
and skilled to adjust those preliminary measures which steal
from the people, without its knowledge, the power of choosing
its own rulers. The popular voice, at the next gubernatorial
election, though loud as thunder, will be really but an echo of
what these gentlemen shall speak, under their breath, at your
friend's festive board. They meet to decide upon their candidate.
House of Seven Gables |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne: affairs.
"Well," said he, after a little thought, "I now have reason to believe
that the convicts are not in the corral."
"We shall soon know," said Pencroft, "when we have scaled the palisade."
"To the corral, my friends!" said Cyrus Harding.
"Shall we leave the cart in the wood?" asked Neb.
"No," replied the engineer, "it is our wagon of ammunition and
provisions, and, if necessary, it would serve as an entrenchment."
"Forward, then!" said Gideon Spilett.
The cart emerged from the wood and began to roll noiselessly towards the
palisade. The darkness was now profound, the Silence as complete as when
The Mysterious Island |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: trickle of the coming flood of mechanical power. Away in the north
they were casting iron in bigger and bigger forms, working their way
to the production of steel on a large scale, applying power in
factories. Bromstead had almost doubted in size again long before
the railway came; there was hardly any thatch left in the High
Street, but instead were houses with handsome brass-knockered front
doors and several windows, and shops with shop-fronts all of square
glass panes, and the place was lighted publicly now by oil lamps--
previously only one flickering lamp outside each of the coaching
inns had broken the nocturnal darkness. And there was talk, it long
remained talk,--of gas. The gasworks came in 1834, and about that
|
