| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Enoch Arden, &c. by Alfred Tennyson: grave.
Pretty enough, very pretty! but I was against it for
one.
Eh!--but he would n't hear me--and Willy, you say,
is gone.
III.
Willy, my beauty, my eldest-born, the flower of the
flock;
Never a man could fling him: for Willy stood like a
rock.
`Here's a leg for a babe of a week!' says doctor; and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: weight of that Titan and too vast orb. What I mean by a perfect
man is one who develops under perfect conditions; one who is not
wounded, or worried or maimed, or in danger. Most personalities
have been obliged to be rebels. Half their strength has been
wasted in friction. Byron's personality, for instance, was
terribly wasted in its battle with the stupidity, and hypocrisy,
and Philistinism of the English. Such battles do not always
intensify strength: they often exaggerate weakness. Byron was
never able to give us what he might have given us. Shelley escaped
better. Like Byron, he got out of England as soon as possible.
But he was not so well known. If the English had had any idea of
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: The voice was gone. What else had been there? But I am of course aware
that next day the pilgrims buried something in a muddy hole.
"And then they very nearly buried me.
"However, as you see, I did not go to join Kurtz there and then.
I did not. I remained to dream the nightmare out to the end, and to show
my loyalty to Kurtz once more. Destiny. My destiny! Droll thing life is--
that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose.
The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself--that comes
too late--a crop of unextinguishable regrets. I have wrestled with death.
It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine. It takes place
in an impalpable greyness, with nothing underfoot, with nothing around,
Heart of Darkness |
