| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tono Bungay by H. G. Wells: gentility has been going on, I am convinced, throughout the whole
commercial upper-middle class since I was twenty-one. Curiously
mixed was the personal quality of the people one saw in these
raids. There were conscientiously refined and low-voiced people
reeking with proud bashfulness; there were aggressively smart
people using pet diminutives for each other loudly and seeking
fresh occasions for brilliant rudeness; there were awkward
husbands and wives quarrelling furtively about their manners and
ill at ease under the eye of the winter; cheerfully amiable and
often discrepant couples with a disposition to inconspicuous
corners, and the jolly sort, affecting an unaffected ease; plump
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: and my position was that of the only stranger on board.
I mention this because it has some bearing on what is to follow.
But what I felt most was my being a stranger to the ship;
and if all the truth must be told, I was somewhat of a stranger
to myself. The youngest man on board (barring the second mate),
and untried as yet by a position of the fullest responsibility,
I was willing to take the adequacy of the others for granted.
They had simply to be equal to their tasks; but I wondered
how far I should turn out faithful to that ideal conception
of one's own personality every man sets up for himself secretly.
Meantime the chief mate, with an almost visible effect of collaboration
The Secret Sharer |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Riverman by Stewart Edward White: several doorways Orde's little compact group was accosted by the
burly saloonkeepers.
"Hullo, boys!" said they invariably, "glad to see you back. Come in
and have a drink on me."
Well these men knew that one free drink would mean a dozen paid for.
But the rivermen merely shook their heads.
"Huh!" sneered one of the girls. "Them's no river-jacks! Them's
just off the hay trail, I bet!"
But even this time-honoured and generally effective taunt was
ignored.
In the middle of the third block Orde wheeled sharp to the left down
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