| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: not patriotic?" Well, to these sage remarks no answer can really be
returned, especially to such of the above as refer to foreign opinion.
But see here. There once lived in a remote corner of Russia two
natives of the region indicated. One of those natives was a good man
named Kifa Mokievitch, and a man of kindly disposition; a man who went
through life in a dressing-gown, and paid no heed to his household,
for the reason that his whole being was centred upon the province of
speculation, and that, in particular, he was preoccupied with a
philosophical problem usually stated by him thus: "A beast," he would
say, "is born naked. Now, why should that be? Why should not a beast
be born as a bird is born--that is to say, through the process of
Dead Souls |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Reign of King Edward the Third by William Shakespeare: Courage, Artois! a fig for feathered shafts,
When feathered fowls do bandy on our side!
What need we fight, and sweat, and keep a coil,
When railing crows outscold our adversaries?
Up, up, Artois! the ground it self is armed
With Fire containing flint; command our bows
To hurl away their pretty colored Ew,
And to it with stones: away, Artois, away!
My soul doth prophecy we win the day.
[Exeunt.]
ACT IV. SCENE VII. The same. Another Part of
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Nada the Lily by H. Rider Haggard: forest. Then I heard a wolf howl on my right, and from the left came
answering howls, and these, again, were answered by others in front of
and behind me. I walked on boldly, for I dared not stay, guiding
myself by the sun, which from time to time shone down on me redly
through the boughs of the great trees. Now I could see forms grey and
black slinking near my path, sniffing at the air as they went, and now
I came to a little open place, and, behold! all the wolves in the
world were gathered together there. My heart melted, my legs trembled
beneath me. On every side were the brutes, great and hungry. And I
stood still, with club aloft, and slowly they crept up, muttering and
growling as they came, till they formed a deep circle round me. Yet
Nada the Lily |
