| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Son of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: suffering he had endured. His mind and his soul had been purged
by sorrow and remorse.
His one thought now was to atone--win to Meriem's side and
lay down his life, if necessary, in her protection. His eyes
sought the length of the canoe in search of the paddle, for a
determination had galvanized him to immediate action despite
his weakness and his wound. But the paddle was gone. He turned
his eyes toward the shore. Dimly through the darkness of a
moonless night he saw the awful blackness of the jungle, yet it
touched no responsive chord of terror within him now as it had
done in the past. He did not even wonder that he was unafraid, for
The Son of Tarzan |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: accent, too. Yes! Let me only find the right word! Surely it
must be lying somewhere among the wreckage of all the plaints and
all the exultations poured out aloud since the first day when
hope, the undying, came down on earth. It may be there, close
by, disregarded, invisible, quite at hand. But it's no good. I
believe there are men who can lay hold of a needle in a pottle of
hay at the first try. For myself, I have never had such luck.
And then there is that accent. Another difficulty. For who is
going to tell whether the accent is right or wrong till the word
is shouted, and fails to be heard, perhaps, and goes down-wind,
leaving the world unmoved? Once upon a time there lived an
A Personal Record |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Profits of Religion by Upton Sinclair: sporting-goods, and when they get old and tired they make the
thrilling discovery that they have souls; the theosophists
cultivate these souls and they leave their money to the
soul-cause, and there are lawsuits and exposes in the newspapers.
For, you see, there is ferocious rivalry in the game of
cultivating millionaire souls; there are slanders and feuds, just
as in soulless affairs. "Don't have anything to do with Madame
Tingley," whispers a Theosophist lady to my wife; and when my
wife in all innocence inquires, "Why not?" the awe-stricken
answer comes, "She practices black magic!"
Let me add that I do not say that she practices black magic. I do
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