| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister: in the room. They were getting ready to come to church,--brushing
their hair, shaving, and making themselves clean, amid talk
occasionally profane and continuously diverting.
"Well, I'm a Christian, anyway," one declared.
"I'm a Mormon, I guess," said another.
"I belong to the Knights of Pythias," said a third.
"I'm a Mohammedist," said a fourth; "I hope I ain't goin' to hear
nothin' to shock me."
And they went on with their joking. But Trampas was out of the
joking. He lay on his bed reading a newspaper, and took no pains
to look pleasant. My eyes were considering him when the blithe
The Virginian |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from To-morrow by Joseph Conrad: He extended his hand. "No fear! I haven't
forgotten a single one of you in the world. Some
gave me more than money--but I am a beggar now
--and you women always had to get me out of my
scrapes."
He swaggered up to the parlour window, and in
the dim light filtering through the blind, looked at
the coin lying in his palm. It was a half-sovereign.
He slipped it into his pocket. She stood a little on
one side, with her head drooping, as if wounded;
with her arms hanging passive by her side, as if
To-morrow |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Laches by Plato: war, or in any sort of contest; but to whom the suffering or not suffering
of these things will be for the best, can no more be decided by the
soothsayer than by one who is no soothsayer.
LACHES: I cannot understand what Nicias would be at, Socrates; for he
represents the courageous man as neither a soothsayer, nor a physician, nor
in any other character, unless he means to say that he is a god. My
opinion is that he does not like honestly to confess that he is talking
nonsense, but that he shuffles up and down in order to conceal the
difficulty into which he has got himself. You and I, Socrates, might have
practised a similar shuffle just now, if we had only wanted to avoid the
appearance of inconsistency. And if we had been arguing in a court of law
|
