| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Chance by Joseph Conrad: be a fine fellow. Yet on the facts as I knew them he might have
been a dangerous trifler or a downright scoundrel. He had made a
miserable, hopeless girl follow him clandestinely to London. It is
true that the girl had written since, only Mrs. Fyne had been
remarkably vague as to the contents. They were unsatisfactory.
They did not positively announce imminent nuptials as far as I could
make it out from her rather mysterious hints. But then her
inexperience might have led her astray. There was no fathoming the
innocence of a woman like Mrs. Fyne who, venturing as far as
possible in theory, would know nothing of the real aspect of things.
It would have been comic if she were making all this fuss for
Chance |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Euthydemus by Plato: second when one is improper but customary; the third when the ambiguity
arises in the combination of elements that are in themselves unambiguous,
as in "knowing letters." "Knowing" and "letters" are perhaps separately
unambiguous, but in combination may imply either that the letters are
known, or that they themselves have knowledge. Such are the modes in which
propositions and terms may be ambiguous.'
Yes, I do.
Then do you see our garments?
Yes.
Then our garments have the quality of vision.
They can see to any extent, said Ctesippus.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson: sea-side of the house, and there, sure enough, there burned a pale
light in one of the upper windows.
He stepped back a little way, till he thought he could see the
movement of a shadow on the wall of the apartment. Then he
remembered that, in the stable, his groping hand had rested for a
moment on a ladder, and he returned with all despatch to bring it.
The ladder was very short, but yet, by standing on the topmost
round, he could bring his hands as high as the iron bars of the
window; and seizing these, he raised his body by main force until
his eyes commanded the interior of the room.
Two persons were within; the first he readily knew to be Dame
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