| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: the night.
In this particular instance the mean interloper held the road for
some six weeks on end, establishing his particular administrative
methods over the best part of the North Atlantic. It looked as if
the easterly weather had come to stay for ever, or, at least, till
we had all starved to death in the held-up fleet - starved within
sight, as it were, of plenty, within touch, almost, of the
bountiful heart of the Empire. There we were, dotting with our
white dry sails the hard blueness of the deep sea. There we were,
a growing company of ships, each with her burden of grain, of
timber, of wool, of hides, and even of oranges, for we had one or
The Mirror of the Sea |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: sense it may be admitted to be stronger than death, is by no means
so universal and so sure. In fact, love is rare - the love of men,
of things, of ideas, the love of perfected skill. For love is the
enemy of haste; it takes count of passing days, of men who pass
away, of a fine art matured slowly in the course of years and
doomed in a short time to pass away too, and be no more. Love and
regret go hand in hand in this world of changes swifter than the
shifting of the clouds reflected in the mirror of the sea.
To penalize a yacht in proportion to the fineness of her
performance is unfair to the craft and to her men. It is unfair to
the perfection of her form and to the skill of her servants. For
The Mirror of the Sea |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Russia in 1919 by Arthur Ransome: normal conditions foreign help was essential.
The other question we touched was that of munitions. I
expressed some surprise that they should be able to do so
well although cut off from the west. Krasin said that as far
as that was concerned they had ample munitions for a long
fight. Heavy artillery is not much use for the kind of
warfare waged in Russia; and as for light artillery, they were
making and mending their own. They were not bothering
with three-inch shells because they had found that the old
regime had left scattered about Russia supplies of
three-inch shells sufficient to last them several years.
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