| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: It was as though an animated image of death carved out of old
ivory had been shaking its hand with menaces at a motionless
crowd of men made of dark and glittering bronze. I saw him
open his mouth wide--it gave him a weirdly voracious aspect,
as though he had wanted to swallow all the air, all the earth,
all the men before him. A deep voice reached me faintly.
He must have been shouting. He fell back suddenly.
The stretcher shook as the bearers staggered forward again,
and almost at the same time I noticed that the crowd of savages
was vanishing without any perceptible movement of retreat,
as if the forest that had ejected these beings so suddenly had
Heart of Darkness |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lady Susan by Jane Austen: hope to see her the wife of Sir James within a twelvemonth. You know on
what I ground my hope, and it is certainly a good foundation, for school
must be very humiliating to a girl of Frederica's age. And, by-the-by, you
had better not invite her any more on that account, as I wish her to find
her situation as unpleasant as possible. I am sure of Sir James at any
time, and could make him renew his application by a line. I shall trouble
you meanwhile to prevent his forming any other attachment when he comes to
town. Ask him to your house occasionally, and talk to him of Frederica,
that he may not forget her. Upon the whole, I commend my own conduct in
this affair extremely, and regard it as a very happy instance of
circumspection and tenderness. Some mothers would have insisted on their
Lady Susan |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Youth by Joseph Conrad: dren. One of the boats dropped in the water, and
walked towards us upon the sea with her long oars. Four
Calashes pulled a swinging stroke. This was my first
sight of Malay seamen. I've known them since, but
what struck me then was their unconcern: they came
alongside, and even the bowman standing up and holding
to our main-chains with the boat-hook did not deign to
lift his head for a glance. I thought people who had
been blown up deserved more attention.
"A little man, dry like a chip and agile like a monkey,
clambered up. It was the mate of the steamer. He
Youth |
