| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad: had more endurance; he could swim longer, and steer a canoe better
than any of his people; he could shoot straighter, and negotiate more
tortuously than any man of his race I knew. He was an adventurer of
the sea, an outcast, a ruler--and my very good friend. I wish him a
quick death in a stand-up fight, a death in sunshine; for he had known
remorse and power, and no man can demand more from life. Day after day
he appeared before us, incomparably faithful to the illusions of the
stage, and at sunset the night descended upon him quickly, like a
falling curtain. The seamed hills became black shadows towering high
upon a clear sky; above them the glittering confusion of stars
resembled a mad turmoil stilled by a gesture; sounds ceased, men
Tales of Unrest |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: you? which of us will speak first? whoever misses shall sit down, as at a
game of ball, and shall be donkey, as the boys say; he who lasts out his
competitors in the game without missing, shall be our king, and shall have
the right of putting to us any questions which he pleases...Why is there no
reply? I hope, Theodorus, that I am not betrayed into rudeness by my love
of conversation? I only want to make us talk and be friendly and sociable.
THEODORUS: The reverse of rudeness, Socrates: but I would rather that you
would ask one of the young fellows; for the truth is, that I am unused to
your game of question and answer, and I am too old to learn; the young will
be more suitable, and they will improve more than I shall, for youth is
always able to improve. And so having made a beginning with Theaetetus, I
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: conversation will not be worth more than the prattle of a thousand
chatterboxes. For what good does one get out of balls? Suppose that a
competent writer were to describe such a scene exactly as it stands?
Why, even in a book it would seem senseless, even as it certainly is
in life. Are, therefore, such functions right or wrong? One would
answer that the devil alone knows, and then spit and close the book."
Such were the unfavourable comments which Chichikov passed upon balls
in general. With it all, however, there went a second source of
dissatisfaction. That is to say, his principal grudge was not so much
against balls as against the fact that at this particular one he had
been exposed, he had been made to disclose the circumstance that he
Dead Souls |
