| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: placing old Lingard so much above the common crowd of sea-going
adventurers who traded with Hudig in the daytime and drank
champagne, gambled, sang noisy songs, and made love to half-caste
girls under the broad verandah of the Sunda Hotel at night. Into
that river, whose entrances himself only knew, Lingard used to
take his assorted cargo of Manchester goods, brass gongs, rifles
and gunpowder. His brig Flash, which he commanded himself, would
on those occasions disappear quietly during the night from the
roadstead while his companions were sleeping off the effects of
the midnight carouse, Lingard seeing them drunk under the table
before going on board, himself unaffected by any amount of
Almayer's Folly |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Vision Splendid by William MacLeod Raine: The big man stared. "I thought it only applied to district road
supervisors. Were you back of that bill, Jeff?"
"I had it drawn up and helped steer it through the committee,
though I was careful not to appear interested."
"You sly old fox! And nobody guessed it had general application.
None of us read the blamed thing through. You're going to use it
as a club to make the legislators stand pat on their pledges."
"Yes."
"But don't you see how revolutionary your big stick is?" Rawson's
smile was expansive. "Why, hang it, man, you're destroying the
fundamental value of representative government. It's a deliberate
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Schoolmistress and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov: This brief conversation with the boy reassured me for a little,
but not for long. Pashka, seeing my uneasiness, fastened his big
eyes upon the light, looked at me again, then again at the light.
. . .
"I am frightened," he whispered.
At this point, beside myself with terror, I clutched the boy with
one hand, huddled up to him, and gave the horse a violent lash.
"It's stupid!" I said to myself. "That phenomenon is only
terrible because I don't understand it; everything we don't
understand is mysterious."
I tried to persuade myself, but at the same time I did not leave
The Schoolmistress and Other Stories |
