| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: among the Sclavonian peasantry in the more re-
mote provinces of Austria. The object of these
scoundrels was to get hold of the poor ignorant
people's homesteads, and they were in league with
the local usurers. They exported their victims
through Hamburg mostly. As to the ship, I had
watched her out of this very window, reaching
close-hauled under short canvas into the bay on a
dark, threatening afternoon. She came to an an-
chor, correctly by the chart, off the Brenzett Coast-
guard station. I remember before the night fell
Amy Foster |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: maintain if they are useful to a certain end, they can never become
useless; whereas I say that in order to accomplish some results bad things
are needed, and good for others.
SOCRATES: But can a bad thing be used to carry out a good purpose?
CRITIAS: I should say not.
SOCRATES: And we call those actions good which a man does for the sake of
virtue?
CRITIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: But can a man learn any kind of knowledge which is imparted by
word of mouth if he is wholly deprived of the sense of hearing?
CRITIAS: Certainly not, I think.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: ardent spirits.
You would not imagine how many adventures, how many tragedies, lie
buried away out of sight in that Dolorous City; how much horror and
beauty lurks there. No imagination can reach the Truth, no one can go
down into that city to make discoveries; for one must needs descend
too low into its depths to see the wonderful scenes of tragedy or
comedy enacted there, the masterpieces brought forth by chance.
I do not know how it is that I have kept the following story so long
untold. It is one of the curious things that stop in the bag from
which Memory draws out stories at haphazard, like numbers in a
lottery. There are plenty of tales just as strange and just as well
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