| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Youth by Joseph Conrad: hailed back, 'I think so.' 'Easy astern,' said the gruff
voice. A bell jingled. 'What steamer is that?'
screamed Mahon. By that time she was no more to us
than a bulky shadow maneuvering a little way off. They
shouted at us some name--a woman's name, Miranda or
Melissa--or some such thing. 'This means another
month in this beastly hole,' said Mahon to me, as we
peered with lamps about the splintered bulwarks and
broken braces. 'But where's the captain?'
"We had not heard or seen anything of him all that
time. We went aft to look. A doleful voice arose hail-
Youth |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Koran: a monstrous thing! The heavens well-nigh burst asunder thereat, and
the earth is riven, and the mountains fall down broken, that they
attribute to the Merciful a son! but it becomes not the Merciful to
take to Himself a son! there is none in the heavens or the earth but
comes to the Merciful as a servant; He counts them and numbers them by
number, and they are all coming to Him on the resurrection day singly.
Verily, those who believe and act aright, to them the Merciful
will give love.
We have only made it easy for thy tongue that thou mayest thereby
give glad tidings to the pious, and warn thereby a contentious people.
How many a generation before them have we destroyed? Canst thou find
The Koran |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Ebb-Tide by Stevenson & Osbourne: 'Many things,' said Attwater. 'Youth, curiosity, romance, the
love of the sea, and (it will surprise you to hear) an interest
in missions. That has a good deal declined, which will surprise
you less. They go the wrong way to work; they are too parsonish,
too much of the old wife, and even the old apple wife. CLOTHES,
CLOTHES, are their idea; but clothes are not Christianity, any
more than they are the sun in heaven, or could take the place of
it! They think a parsonage with roses, and church bells, and nice
old women bobbing in the lanes, are part and parcel of religion.
But religion is a savage thing, like the universe it illuminates;
savage, cold, and bare, but infinitely strong.'
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