| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad: lazy specimen of an old man up there."
He put a marked emphasis on the last sentence, to
lead Massy away from the track in case . . . but he
did not doubt of now holding his success. The chief
engineer seemed nonplused, like a slow man invited to
catch hold of a whirligig of some sort.
"What you want, sir, is a chap with no nonsense about
him, who would be content to be your sailing-master.
Quite right, too. Well, I am fit for the work as much
as that Serang. Because that's what it amounts to.
Do you know, sir, that a dam' Malay like a monkey is
End of the Tether |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: succeeded by a cardinal of the imperial faction, but native of
Tuscany, who is now about sixty-one years old.
The French army acts now wholly on the defensive, strongly
fortify'd in their trenches; and the young French King sends
overtures for a treaty of peace by the Duke of Mantua; which,
because it is a matter of state that concerns us here at home, I
shall speak no farther of it.
I shall add but one prediction more, and that in mystical terms,
which shall be included in a verse out of Virgil,
Alter erit jam Tethys, & altera quae vehat Argo.
Delectos heroas.
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Prufrock/Other Observations by T. S. Eliot: Who has, and gives
Those qualities upon which friendship lives.
How much it means that I say this to you--
Without these friendships--life, what cauchemar!"
Among the windings of the violins
And the ariettes
Of cracked cornets
Inside my brain a dull tom-tom begins
Absurdly hammering a prelude of its own,
Capricious monotone
That is at least one definite "false note."
Prufrock/Other Observations |
