| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: may be here, and the other in Java, that they can at the same instant
feel the same sensation, and be conscious of so doing; they can
question each other and reply without mistake'; and yet there are
mineral substances which exhibit sympathies as far off from each other
as those of which I speak. You believe in the power of the electricity
which you find in the magnet and you deny that which emanates from the
soul! According to you, the moon, whose influence upon the tides you
think fixed, has none whatever upon the winds, nor upon navigation,
nor upon men; she moves the sea, but she must not affect the sick
folk; she has undeniable relations with one half of humanity, and
nothing at all to do with the other half. These are your vaunted
Seraphita |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: been, indeed, of a tougher fibre than he looked to
withstand without expiring such buffetings, the
violence of his exertions, and so much fear. Later
on, in his broken English that resembled curiously
the speech of a young child, he told me himself that
he put his trust in God, believing he was no longer
in this world. And truly--he would add--how was
he to know? He fought his way against the rain
and the gale on all fours, and crawled at last
among some sheep huddled close under the lee of a
hedge. They ran off in all directions, bleating in
Amy Foster |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Ivanhoe by Walter Scott: my liegemen, and be good subjects in future.---And
thou, brave Locksley---''
``Call me no longer Locksley, my Liege, but
know me under the name, which, I fear, fame hath
blown too widely not to have reached even your
royal ears---I am Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest.''*
* From the ballads of Robin Hood, we learn that this celebrated
* outlaw, when in disguise, sometimes assumed the name of
* Locksley, from a village where he was born, but where situated
* we are not distinctly told.
``King of Outlaws, and Prince of good fellows!''
Ivanhoe |
