| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: Behind them Ali moved noiselessly laying the table, ranging
solemnly the ill-assorted and shabby crockery, the tin spoons,
the forks with broken prongs, and the knives with saw-like blades
and loose handles. He had almost forgotten how to prepare the
table for white men. He felt aggrieved; Mem Nina would not help
him. He stepped back to look at his work admiringly, feeling
very proud. This must be right; and if the master afterwards is
angry and swears, then so much the worse for Mem Nina. Why did
she not help? He left the verandah to fetch the dinner.
"Well, Mr. Almayer, will you answer my question as frankly as it
is put to you?" asked the lieutenant, after a long silence.
Almayer's Folly |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: many men. (Poniatowski's action against Utitsa, and Uvarov's on the
right flank against the French, were actions distinct from the main
course of the battle.) So the battle of Borodino did not take place at
all as (in an effort to conceal our commanders' mistakes even at the
cost of diminishing the glory due to the Russian army and people) it
has been described. The battle of Borodino was not fought on a
chosen and entrenched position with forces only slightly weaker than
those of the enemy, but, as a result of the loss of the Shevardino
Redoubt, the Russians fought the battle of Borodino on an open and
almost unentrenched position, with forces only half as numerous as the
French; that is to say, under conditions in which it was not merely
War and Peace |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy: When a strong woman recklessly throws away her
strength she is worse than a weak woman who has never
had any strength to throw away. One source of her
inadequacy is the novelty of the occasion. She has
never had practice in making the best of such a
condition. Weakness is doubly weak by being new.
Bathsheba was not conscious of guile in this matter.
Though in one sense a woman of the world, it was, after
all, that world of daylight coteries and green carpets
wherein cattle form the passing crowd and winds the
busy hum; where a quiet family of rabbits or hares lives
Far From the Madding Crowd |
