| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Astoria by Washington Irving: mere tents and cabins of mats, or skins, or straw, the country
being destitute of timber. In Wish-ram, on the contrary, the
houses were built of wood, with long sloping roofs. The floor was
sunk about six feet below the surface of the ground, with a low
door at the gable end, extremely narrow, and partly sunk. Through
this it was necessary to crawl and then to descend a short
ladder. This inconvenient entrance was probably for the purpose
of defense; there were loop-holes also under the eaves,
apparently for the discharge of arrows. The houses were large,
generally containing two or three families. Immediately within
the door were sleeping places, ranged along the walls, like
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott: save professional persons to encounter."
"Lady Bothwell does me too much honour," replied the adventurous
knight, "in regarding such a circumstance with the slightest
interest. But to soothe your flattering anxiety, I trust your
ladyship will recollect that I cannot expose to hazard the
venerable and paternal character which you so obligingly
recommend to my protection, without putting in some peril an
honest fellow, called Philip Forester, with whom I have kept
company for thirty years, and with whom, though some folks
consider him a coxcomb, I have not the least desire to part."
"Well, Sir Philip, you are the best judge of your own affairs. I
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Long Odds by H. Rider Haggard: "All right," I said, "the evening is young, and there is some more
port."
Thus adjured, he filled his pipe from a jar of coarse-cut Boer tobacco
that was always standing on the mantelpiece, and still walking up and
down the room, began--
"It was, I think, in the March of '69 that I was up in Sikukuni's
country. It was just after old Sequati's time, and Sikukuni had got
into power--I forget how. Anyway, I was there. I had heard that the
Bapedi people had brought down an enormous quantity of ivory from the
interior, and so I started with a waggon-load of goods, and came
straight away from Middelburg to try and trade some of it. It was a
Long Odds |
