| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne: This luminous ridge had neither color nor motion. Nor was it a
volcano in eruption. And Barbicane did not hesitate to
pronounce upon it.
"The sun!" he exclaimed.
"What! the sun?" answered Nicholl and Michel Ardan.
"Yes, my friends, it is the radiant orb itself lighting up the
summit of the mountains situated on the southern borders of
the moon. We are evidently nearing the south pole."
"After having passed the north pole," replied Michel. "We have
made the circuit of our satellite, then?"
"Yes, my good Michel."
From the Earth to the Moon |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Kidnapped Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum: look smilingly up from their green nests. To laugh one needs to be
happy; to be happy one needs to be content. And throughout the
Laughing Valley of Santa Claus contentment reigns supreme.
On one side is the mighty Forest of Burzee. At the other side stands
the huge mountain that contains the Caves of the Daemons. And between
them the Valley lies smiling and peaceful.
One would thing that our good old Santa Claus, who devotes his days to
making children happy, would have no enemies on all the earth; and, as
a matter of fact, for a long period of time he encountered nothing but
love wherever he might go.
But the Daemons who live in the mountain caves grew to hate Santa Claus
A Kidnapped Santa Claus |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Critias by Plato: of the first part of the Aeneid is intended by Virgil to foreshadow the
wars of Carthage and Rome. The small number of the primitive Athenian
citizens (20,000), 'which is about their present number' (Crit.), is
evidently designed to contrast with the myriads and barbaric array of the
Atlantic hosts. The passing remark in the Timaeus that Athens was left
alone in the struggle, in which she conquered and became the liberator of
Greece, is also an allusion to the later history. Hence we may safely
conclude that the entire narrative is due to the imagination of Plato, who
has used the name of Solon and introduced the Egyptian priests to give
verisimilitude to his story. To the Greek such a tale, like that of the
earth-born men, would have seemed perfectly accordant with the character of
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