| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Father Damien by Robert Louis Stevenson: as a bracket to a wall. With this hint you will now be able to
pick out the leper station on a map; you will be able to judge how
much of Molokai is thus cut off between the surf and precipice,
whether less than a half, or less than a quarter, or a fifth, or a
tenth - or, say a twentieth; and the next time you burst into print
you will be in a position to share with us the issue of your
calculations.
I imagine you to be one of those persons who talk with cheerfulness
of that place which oxen and wain-ropes could not drag you to
behold. You, who do not even know its situation on the map,
probably denounce sensational descriptions, stretching your limbs
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: they called her, didn't last a week. She died begging her husband to
burn that accursed boat. Oh, he did it! As for him, he became I don't
know what; he staggered about like a man who can't carry his wine.
Then he went away and was gone ten days, and after he returned he put
himself where you saw him, and since he has been there he has never
said one word."
The fisherman related this history rapidly and more simply than I can
write it. The lower classes make few comments as they relate a thing;
they tell the fact that strikes them, and present it as they felt it.
This tale was made as sharply incisive as the blow of an axe.
"I shall not go to Batz," said Pauline, when we came to the upper
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Herbert West: Reanimator by H. P. Lovecraft: learned and self-sacrificing martyr who had been entombed but
three days before -- the late Dr. Allan Halsey, public benefactor
and dean of the medical school of Miskatonic University.
To
the vanished Herbert West and to me the disgust and horror were
supreme. I shudder tonight as I think of it; shudder even more
than I did that morning when West muttered through his bandages,
"Damn it, it wasn’t quite fresh enough!"
III. Six Shots by Moonlight
Published
April 1922 in Home Brew Vol. 1, No. 3, p. 21-26.
Herbert West: Reanimator |
