| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: sky. Fleets of victorious ships have hung upon his breath. He has
tossed in his hand squadrons of war-scarred three-deckers, and
shredded out in mere sport the bunting of flags hallowed in the
traditions of honour and glory. He is a good friend and a
dangerous enemy, without mercy to unseaworthy ships and faint-
hearted seamen. In his kingly way he has taken but little account
of lives sacrificed to his impulsive policy; he is a king with a
double-edged sword bared in his right hand. The East Wind, an
interloper in the dominions of Westerly weather, is an impassive-
faced tyrant with a sharp poniard held behind his back for a
treacherous stab.
The Mirror of the Sea |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: another of his goods at the price of infamy. Had he suffered from this
thirst for riches it would have been easier to cling to what belonged
to him than to take that to which he had no just title. This man, who
was so careful to repay debts of gratitude, where[2] the law knows no
remedy against defaulters, was not likely to commit acts of robbery
which the law regards as criminal. And as a matter of act Agesilaus
judged it not only wrong to forgo repayment of a deed of kindness,
but, where the means were ample, wrong also not to repay such debts
with ample interest.
[1] See Muller and Donaldson, "Hist. Gk. Lit." ii. 196, note 2.
[2] Or, "a state of indebtedness beyond the reach of a tribunal." See
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Witch, et. al by Anton Chekhov: nowadays has mastered everything; he knows what he ought not to
know, and what is the sense of it? It makes you feel pitiful to
look at him. . . . He is a thin, puny little fellow, like some
Hungarian or Frenchman; there is no dignity nor air about him;
it's only in name he is a gentleman. There is no place for him,
poor dear, and nothing for him to do, and there is no making out
what he wants. Either he sits with a hook catching fish, or he
lolls on his back reading, or trots about among the peasants
saying all sorts of th ings to them, and those that are hungry go
in for being clerks. So he spends his life in vain. And he has no
notion of doing something real and useful. The gentry in old days
|
