| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The American by Henry James: he exclaimed. "You have achieved what we call a personal success!
Immediately, now, I must present you to my brother."
"Whenever you please!" said Newman.
CHAPTER X
Newman continued to see his friends the Tristrams with a good deal
of frequency, though if you had listened to Mrs. Tristram's account
of the matter you would have supposed that they had been cynically
repudiated for the sake of grander acquaintance. "We were all
very well so long as we had no rivals--we were better than nothing.
But now that you have become the fashion, and have your pick every
day of three invitations to dinner, we are tossed into the corner.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Rescue by Joseph Conrad: green of the fields, the clumps of palm trees, the fenced-in
plantations, the groves of fruit trees, made up a picture of
sumptuous prosperity.
Above the buildings, the men, the women, the still sheet of water
and the great plain of crops glistening with dew, stretched the
exalted, the miraculous peace of a cloudless sky. And no road
seemed to lead into this country of splendour and stillness. One
could not believe the unquiet sea was so near, with its gifts and
its unending menace. Even during the months of storms, the great
clamour rising from the whitened expanse of the Shallows dwelt
high in the air in a vast murmur, now feeble now stronger, that
The Rescue |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Euthydemus by Plato: supply us with the fruits of the earth?
CRITO: Yes.
SOCRATES: And what does the kingly art do when invested with supreme
power? Perhaps you may not be ready with an answer?
CRITO: Indeed I am not, Socrates.
SOCRATES: No more were we, Crito. But at any rate you know that if this
is the art which we were seeking, it ought to be useful.
CRITO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And surely it ought to do us some good?
CRITO: Certainly, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And Cleinias and I had arrived at the conclusion that knowledge
|
