| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: he to know? He fought his way against the rain
and the gale on all fours, and crawled at last
among some sheep huddled close under the lee of a
hedge. They ran off in all directions, bleating in
the darkness, and he welcomed the first familiar
sound he heard on these shores. It must have been
two in the morning then. And this is all we know
of the manner of his landing, though he did not
arrive unattended by any means. Only his grisly
company did not begin to come ashore till much
later in the day. . . ."
Amy Foster |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson: thumbed, greasy pack of cards, such as you may find in a mean
inn; and his eyes brightened in his face as he proposed that we
should fall to playing.
Now this was one of the things I had been brought up to eschew
like disgrace; it being held by my father neither the part of a
Christian nor yet of a gentleman to set his own livelihood and
fish for that of others, on the cast of painted pasteboard. To
be sure, I might have pleaded my fatigue, which was excuse
enough; but I thought it behoved that I should bear a testimony.
I must have got very red in the face, but I spoke steadily, and
told them I had no call to be a judge of others, but for my own
Kidnapped |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Youth by Joseph Conrad: poop.
"Of course they very soon found out in the steamer
that the rope was gone. She gave a loud blast of her
whistle, her lights were seen sweeping in a wide circle, she
came up ranging close alongside, and stopped. We were
all in a tight group on the poop looking at her. Every
man had saved a little bundle or a bag. Suddenly a con-
ical flame with a twisted top shot up forward and threw
upon the black sea a circle of light, with the two vessels
side by side and heaving gently in its center. Captain
Beard had been sitting on the gratings still and mute for
Youth |
