| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: having to report himself every day at noon to the military
commandant, who used to detain him frequently for a pipe and a
chat. It is difficult to form a just idea of what a chat with
Mr. Nicholas B. could have been like. There must have been much
compressed rage under his taciturnity, for the commandant
communicated to him the news from the theatre of war and this
news was such as it could be, that is, very bad for the Poles.
Mr. Nicholas B. received these communications with outward
phlegm, but the Russian showed a warm sympathy for his prisoner.
"As a soldier myself I understand your feelings. You, of course,
would like to be in the thick of it. By heavens! I am fond of
Some Reminiscences |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Regrets and recollections of things past,
With hints and prophecies of things to be,
And inspirations, which, could they be things,
And stay with us, and we could hold them fast,
Were our good angels,--these I owe to thee.
IV
And thou, O River of To-morrow, flowing
Between thy narrow adamantine walls,
But beautiful, and white with waterfalls,
And wreaths of mist, like hands the pathway showing;
I hear the trumpets of the morning blowing,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: very well acquainted with such parlours!" And you should have seen
with what a hard and scornful eye she measured the vagabond before
her! I do not think he ever hated the Commissary; but before that
interview was at an end, he hated Madame la Marechale. His passion
(as I am led to understand by one who was present) stood confessed
in a burning eye, a pale cheek, and a trembling utterance; Madame
meanwhile tasting the joys of the matador, goading him with barbed
words and staring him coldly down.
It was certainly good to be away from this lady, and better still
to sit down to an excellent dinner in the inn. Here, too, the
despised travellers scraped acquaintance with their next neighbour,
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