| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Human Drift by Jack London: and it is not in the nature of flesh and blood to indulge in the
carnage made possible by present-day machinery. This is not
theoretical, as will be shown by a comparison of deaths in battle
and men involved, in the South African War and the Spanish-
American War on the one hand, and the Civil War or the Napoleonic
Wars on the other.
Not only has war, by its own evolution, rendered itself futile,
but man himself, with greater wisdom and higher ethics, is opposed
to war. He has learned too much. War is repugnant to his common
sense. He conceives it to be wrong, to be absurd, and to be very
expensive. For the damage wrought and the results accomplished,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Two Brothers by Honore de Balzac: other youths. The two grandsons of Madame Hochon--Francois Hochon and
Baruch Borniche--were his henchmen. These young fellows, accepting the
general opinion of the left-handed parentage of Lousteau, looked upon
Max as their cousin. Max, moreover, was liberal in lending them money
for their pleasures, which their grandfather Hochon refused; he took
them hunting, let them see life, and exercised a much greater
influence over them than their own family. They were both orphans, and
were kept, although each had attained his majority, under the
guardianship of Monsieur Hochon, for reasons which will be explained
when Monsieur Hochon himself comes upon the scene.
At this particular moment Francois and Baruch (we will call them by
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: sort of thing. Yes, it was pretty well true, he thought. They never
got anything worth having from one year's end to another. They did
nothing but talk, talk, talk, eat, eat, eat. It was the women's fault.
Women made civilisation impossible with all their "charm," all their
silliness.
"No going to the Lighthouse tomorrow, Mrs Ramsay," he said, asserting
himself. He liked her; he admired her; he still thought of the man in
the drain-pipe looking up at her; but he felt it necessary to assert
himself.
He was really, Lily Briscoe thought, in spite of his eyes, but then
look at his nose, look at his hands, the most uncharming human being
To the Lighthouse |
