| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from When the World Shook by H. Rider Haggard: them. I suppose it was because in a flash of intuition I knew
that they would come true and that he was an appointed Cassandra.
Perhaps this uncanny knowledge overcame my natural indignation at
such super-gaucherie of which no one but Bastin could have been
capable, and even prevented me from replying at all, so that I
merely sat still and looked at him.
But Bickley did reply with some vigour.
"Forgive me for saying so, Bastin," he said, bristling all over
as it were, "but your remarks, which may or may not be in
accordance with the principles of your religion, seem to me to be
in singularly bad taste. They would have turned the stomachs of a
When the World Shook |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: to the printer. But when I did get hold of a copy, I found it
to be vulgar, awkwardly written, ill-natured, and entirely serious
and in earnest. The gentleman who wrote the newspaper paragraph
above quoted had not been misled as to its character.
If any man doubts my word now, I will kill him. No, I will not
kill him; I will win his money. I will bet him twenty to one,
and let any New York publisher hold the stakes, that the statements I
have above made as to the authorship of the article in question are
entirely true. Perhaps I may get wealthy at this, for I am willing
to take all the bets that offer; and if a man wants larger odds,
I will give him all he requires. But he ought to find out whether
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: being placarded with the tricolor posters announcing the birth of
our company, the petit bourgeois with his wife and family made a
Sunday holiday from the inspection of the ship. I was always in
evidence in my best uniform to give information as though I had
been a Cook's tourists' interpreter, while our quartermasters
reaped a harvest of small change from personally conducted
parties. But when the move was made--that move which carried us
some mile and a half down the stream to be tied up to an
altogether muddier and shabbier quay--then indeed the desolation
of solitude became our lot. It was a complete and soundless
stagnation; for as we had the ship ready for sea to the smallest
A Personal Record |
