| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad: show the inner fire; so that, at last, it becomes a question with them
as with the earth, what there is in the core: heat, violence, a force
mysterious and terrible--or nothing but a clod, a mass fertile and
inert, cold and unfeeling, ready to bear a crop of plants that sustain
life or give death.
The mother watched with other eyes; listened with otherwise expectant
ears. Under the high hanging shelves supporting great sides of bacon
overhead, her body was busy by the great fireplace, attentive to the
pot swinging on iron gallows, scrubbing the long table where the field
hands would sit down directly to their evening meal. Her mind remained
by the cradle, night and day on the watch, to hope and suffer. That
Tales of Unrest |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: grown up at the time of your departure.
Certainly, I know him, I said, for he was remarkable even then when he was
still a child, and I should imagine that by this time he must be almost a
young man.
You will see, he said, in a moment what progress he has made and what he is
like. He had scarcely said the word, when Charmides entered.
Now you know, my friend, that I cannot measure anything, and of the
beautiful, I am simply such a measure as a white line is of chalk; for
almost all young persons appear to be beautiful in my eyes. But at that
moment, when I saw him coming in, I confess that I was quite astonished at
his beauty and stature; all the world seemed to be enamoured of him;
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: He leaned back, serene, with that peculiar smile of his sealing
the unexpressed depths of his meanness. A continuous shower of small
flies streamed upon the lamp, upon the cloth, upon our hands and faces.
Suddenly the manager's boy put his insolent black head in the doorway,
and said in a tone of scathing contempt:
"`Mistah Kurtz--he dead.'
"All the pilgrims rushed out to see. I remained, and went on with my dinner.
I believe I was considered brutally callous. However, I did not eat much.
There was a lamp in there--light, don't you know--and outside it was
so beastly, beastly dark. I went no more near the remarkable man who had
pronounced a judgment upon the adventures of his soul on this earth.
Heart of Darkness |
