| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from To-morrow by Joseph Conrad: Captain Hagberd's upright, hale person, clad in
No. 1 sail-cloth from head to foot, would be emer-
ging knee-deep out of rank grass and the tall weeks
on his side of the fence. He appeared, with the col-
our and uncouth stiffness of the extraordinary ma-
terial in which he chose to clothe himself--"for the
time being," would be his mumbled remark to any
observation on the subject--like a man roughened
out of granite, standing in a wilderness not big
enough for a decent billiard-room. A heavy figure
of a man of stone, with a red handsome face, a blue
To-morrow |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy: the thought of the conversation he was going to have with the
peasants. He was going to fulfil a wish of the peasants, the
fulfilment of which they did not even dare to hope for--to let
the land to them at a low price, i.e., to confer a great boon;
and yet he felt ashamed of something. When Nekhludoff came up to
the peasants, and the fair, the curly, the bald, the grey heads
were bared before him, he felt so confused that he could say
nothing. The rain continued to come down in small drops, that
remained on the hair, the beards, and the fluff of the men's
rough coats. The peasants looked at "the master," waiting for him
to speak, and he was so abashed that he could not speak. This
Resurrection |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley: and our shame?"
His hearers bowed assent.
"Yes; you have heard of our prowess: for glorious we were awhile,
in the sight of God and man. But I will not speak of our glory,
for it is tarnished; nor of our wealth, for it was our poison; nor
of the sins of my comrades, for they have expiated them; but of my
own sins, senors, which are more in number than the hairs of my
head, and a burden too great to bear. Miserere Domine!"
And smiting on his breast, the old warrior went on:
"As I said, we were mad with blood; and none more mad than I.
Surely it is no fable that men are possessed, even in this latter
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