| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Black Dwarf by Walter Scott: inflammatory invective against the government and its measures,
but especially the Union; a treaty, by means of which, he
affirmed, Scotland had been at once cheated of her independence,
her commerce, and her honour, and laid as a fettered slave at the
foot of the rival against whom, through such a length of ages,
through so many dangers, and by so much blood, she had honourably
defended her rights. This was touching a theme which found a
responsive chord in the bosom of every man present.
"Our commerce is destroyed," hollowed old John Rewcastle, a
Jedburgh smuggler, from the lower end of the table.
"Our agriculture is ruined," said the Laird of Broken-girth-flow,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: where there was water enough to float a soup-plate.
"Davidson landed his Javanese plutocrat, and, as he had to wait a
couple of hours for the tide, he went ashore himself to stretch his
legs.
"It was a small settlement. Some sixty houses, most of them built
on piles over the river, the rest scattered in the long grass; the
usual pathway at the back; the forest hemming in the clearing and
smothering what there might have been of air into a dead, hot
stagnation.
"All the population was on the river-bank staring silently, as
Malays will do, at the Sissie anchored in the stream. She was
Within the Tides |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Koran: God's is what is in the heavens and what is in the earth, that He
may reward those who do evil for what they have done; and may reward
those who do good with good! those who shun great sins and
iniquities,-all but venial faults,-verily, thy Lord is of ample
forgiveness; He knows best about you, when He produced you from the
earth, and when ye were embryos in the wombs of your mothers.
Make not yourselves out, then to be pure; He knows best who it is
that fears.
Hast thou considered him who turns his back? who gives but little
and then stops? Has he then the knowledge of the unseen, so that he
can see?
The Koran |
