| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy: to Captain Jutley as fast as you can, and tell him to let you have
another dozen men, and bring them with you along the St. Martin Road,
where I daresay you will soon overtake the Jew's cart with myself in
it. There will be hot work presently, if I mistake not, in the Pere
Blanchard's hut. We shall corner our game there, I'll warrant, for
this impudent Scarlet Pimpernel has had the audacity--or the
stupidity, I hardly know which--to adhere to his original plans. He
has gone to meet de Tournay, St. Just and the other traitors, which
for the moment, I thought, perhaps, he did not intend to do. When we
find them, there will be a band of desperate men at bay. Some of our
men will, I presume, be put HORS DE COMBAT. These royalists are
The Scarlet Pimpernel |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: sail is filled by a little breeze keen enough to have come
straight down from the frozen moon, and the boat, after the
clatter of the hauled-in sweeps, seems to stand at rest,
surrounded by a mysterious whispering so faint and unearthly that
it may be the rustling of the brilliant, over-powering moonrays
breaking like a rain-shower upon the hard, smooth, shadowless
sea.
I may well remember that last night spent with the pilots of the
Third Company. I have known the spell of moonlight since, on
various seas and coasts--coasts of forests, of rocks, of sand
dunes--but no magic so perfect in its revelation of unsuspected
Some Reminiscences |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling: Till he was aware of his father's mare with Kamal upon her back,
And when he could spy the white of her eye, he made the pistol crack.
He has fired once, he has fired twice, but the whistling ball went wide.
"Ye shoot like a soldier," Kamal said. "Show now if ye can ride."
It's up and over the Tongue of Jagai, as blown dustdevils go,
The dun he fled like a stag of ten, but the mare like a barren doe.
The dun he leaned against the bit and slugged his head above,
But the red mare played with the snaffle-bars, as a maiden plays with a glove.
There was rock to the left and rock to the right, and low lean thorn between,
And thrice he heard a breech-bolt snick tho' never a man was seen.
They have ridden the low moon out of the sky, their hoofs drum up the dawn,
Verses 1889-1896 |
