| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Myths and Myth-Makers by John Fiske: obviously from the character of the lightning-myth as to need
no further comment. But its power of detecting criminals still
remains to be accounted for.
In Greek mythology, the being which detects and punishes crime
is the Erinys, the prototype of the Latin Fury, figured by
late writers as a horrible monster with serpent locks. But
this is a degradation of the original conception. The name
Erinys did not originally mean Fury, and it cannot be
explained from Greek sources alone. It appears in Sanskrit as
Saranyu, a word which signifies the light of morning creeping
over the sky. And thus we are led to the startling conclusion
Myths and Myth-Makers |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Falk by Joseph Conrad: ally--illuminating moments when an otherwise in-
significant sound, perhaps only some perfectly com-
monplace gesture, suffices to reveal to us all the
unreason, all the fatuous unreason, of our compla-
cency. "Go ahead" are not particularly striking
words even when pronounced with a foreign accent;
yet they petrified me in the very act of smiling at
myself in the glass. And then, refusing to believe
my ears, but already boiling with indignation, I
ran out of the cabin and up on deck.
It was incredibly true. It was perfectly true. I
Falk |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: her, I thought out my means of revenge, if you should prove to be
right as concerns Valerie. One of my negroes has the most deadly of
animal poisons, and incurable anywhere but in Brazil. I will
administer it to Cydalise, who will give it to me; then by the time
when death is a certainty to Crevel and his wife, I shall be beyond
the Azores with your cousin, who will be cured, and I will marry her.
We have our own little tricks, we savages!--Cydalise," said he,
looking at the country girl, "is the animal I need.--How much does she
owe?"
"A hundred thousand francs," said Cydalise.
"She says little--but to the purpose," said Carabine, in a low tone to
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