| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: and be shown round, but he went through the business without any
raptures whatever.
"And now we'll have a look at my stateroom," I declared, in a voice
as loud as I dared to make it, crossing the cabin to the starboard
side with purposely heavy steps.
He followed me in and gazed around. My intelligent double had
vanished. I played my part.
"Very convenient - isn't it?"
"Very nice. Very comf. . . " He didn't finish, and went out
brusquely as if to escape from some unrighteous wiles of mine. But
it was not to be. I had been too frightened not to feel vengeful;
'Twixt Land & Sea |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: disclose, so to speak, a coherent pattern. This coherent pattern is
England's attitude towards ourselves. It is to be perceived, faintly yet
distinctly, in 1783, and it grows clearer and ever more clear until in
1898, in the game of jackstraws played when we declared war upon Spain,
the pattern is so clear that it could not be mistaken by any one who was
not willfully blinded by an anti-English complex. This pattern represents
a preference on England's part for ourselves to other nations. I do not
ask you to think England's reason for this preference is that she has
loved us so much; that she has loved others so much less--there is her
reason. She has loved herself better than anybody. So must every nation.
So does every nation.
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini: to Andre-Louis in a matter of delicate leadership; to-day he stood
on the heights, one of the great leaders of the Nation in travail,
and Andre-Louis was deep down in the shadows of the general mass.
The thought was in the minds of both as they scanned each other,
each noting in the other the marked change that a few months had
wrought. In Le Chapelier, Andre-Louis observed certain heightened
refinements of dress that went with certain subtler refinements of
countenance. He was thinner than of old, his face was pale and
there was a weariness in the eyes that considered his visitor
through a gold-rimmed spy-glass. In Andre-Louis those jaded but
quick-moving eyes of the Breton deputy noted changes even more
|
