| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Youth by Joseph Conrad: absurd delusion,--I seemed somehow to be in the air. I
heard all round me like a pent-up breath released--as
if a thousand giants simultaneously had said Phoo!--
and felt a dull concussion which made my ribs ache sud-
denly. No doubt about it--I was in the air, and my
body was describing a short parabola. But short as it
was, I had the time to think several thoughts in, as far
as I can remember, the following order: 'This can't be
the carpenter--What is it?--Some accident--Submarine
volcano?--Coals, gas!--By Jove! we are being blown
up--Everybody's dead--I am falling into the after-
Youth |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Crisis in Russia by Arthur Ransome: And Radek entirely happy, delighted at his success in
giving them a bombshell instead of a bouquet, with
one stout fellow on one arm, another on the other, two
or three more listening in front and behind, continued rubbing
it into them until we reached our wagon, when, after a
general handshaking, they disappeared into the night.
THE TRADE UNIONS
Trade Unions in Russia are in a different position from that
which is common to all other Trades Unions in the world.
In other countries the Trades Unions are a force with whose
opposition the Government must reckon. In Russia the
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad: need not to see. But the memory of the vision, the memory that abides
forever within the seer made him say to her with the naive austerity
of a convert awed by the touch of a new creed, "You haven't the gift."
He turned his back on her, leaving her completely mystified. And she
went upstairs slowly, struggling with a distasteful suspicion of
having been confronted by something more subtle than herself--more
profound than the misunderstood and tragic contest of her feelings.
He shut the door of the drawing-room and moved at hazard, alone
amongst the heavy shadows and in the fiery twilight as of an elegant
place of perdition. She hadn't the gift--no one had. . . . He stepped
on a book that had fallen off one of the crowded little tables. He
Tales of Unrest |
