| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: that the best thing to do was to dismiss Yuan for a time. I think
that the trivial excuse he gives for doing so favours my
theory--with "rheumatism of the leg," to which is added, "Thus
our clemency is manifest"--a sentence which may be severe or may
mean nothing, and when the storm has blown over and the sky is
clear again, Yuan may be once more brought to the front as Li
Hung-chang and others have been in the past. Which is a
consummation, I think, devoutly to be wished.
XX
Peking--The City of the Court
The position of Peking at the present time is one of peculiar
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Where There's A Will by Mary Roberts Rinehart: didn't I wasn't going to have any more deception: I had enough
already. And after a while they saw it as I did, and agreed to
wait and see Miss Patty before they decided. They wanted to
have her wakened at once, but I refused, although I agreed to
bring her out first thing in the morning.
"But you can't stay here," I said. "There'll be Miss Cobb at
nine o'clock, and the man comes to light the fire at eight."
"We could go to the old shelter-house on the golf links,"
suggested Mr. Dick, looking me square in the eye. (I took the
hint, and Mrs. Dicky never knew he had been hidden there before.)
"Nobody ever goes near it in winter." So I put on my slippers
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling: thrown haddock-guts at me; but for all that, he is no traitor."
"'I will have no clerk of mine mishandled or miscalled,"
said De Aquila. "That seaman shall be whipped
at his own mast. Write me first a letter, and thou shalt
bear it, with the order for the whipping, tomorrow to the boat."
'At this Gilbert would have kissed De Aquila's hand -
he had not hoped to live until the morning - and when he
trembled less he wrote a letter as from Fulke to the Duke,
saying that the Kennel, which signified Pevensey, was shut, and
that the Old Dog (which was De Aquila) sat outside it, and,
moreover, that all had been betrayed.
|
