| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: doubtless have elicited a categorical reply; but somehow, the
consciousness of an arriere-pensee made me shrink from putting such
a question.
Reflecting on this indifference on a special point, and on the
numerous manifestations I had noticed of his sensibility, I came at
last to the conclusion that he must be a man of tender heart, whose
delicate sensibilities easily shrank from the horrible under every
form; and no more permitted him to dwell unnecessarily upon painful
facts, than they permit imaginative minds to dwell on the details
of an operation.
I had not long settled this in my mind before an accident suddenly
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: Crawford and Co., S. F. There is no postal service; and schooners
must take it, how they may and when. Perhaps some such note as
this might be prefixed:
AT MY DEPARTURE FROM THE ISLAND OF APEMAMA, FOR WHICH YOU WILL LOOK
IN VAIN IN MOST ATLASES, THE KING AND I AGREED, SINCE WE BOTH SET
UP TO BE IN THE POETICAL WAY, THAT WE SHOULD CELEBRATE OUR
SEPARATION IN VERSE. WHETHER OR NOT HIS MAJESTY HAS BEEN TRUE TO
HIS BARGAIN, THE LAGGARD POSTS OF THE PACIFIC MAY PERHAPS INFORM ME
IN SIX MONTHS, PERHAPS NOT BEFORE A YEAR. THE FOLLOWING LINES
REPRESENT MY PART OF THE CONTRACT, AND IT IS HOPED, BY THEIR
PICTURES OF STRANGE MANNERS, THEY MAY ENTERTAIN A CIVILISED
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot: And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors; 180
Departed, have left no addresses.
Line 161 ALRIGHT. This spelling occurs also in
the Hogarth Press edition -- Editor.
By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . .
Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,
Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.
But at my back in a cold blast I hear
The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.
A rat crept softly through the vegetation
Dragging its slimy belly on the bank
The Waste Land |
