| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Youth by Joseph Conrad: deep-sea lead-line which we had saved--for the under-
writers. I eased my painter and fell alongside. He
sat, a broken figure at the stern, wet with dew, his hands
clasped in his lap. His men were asleep already. 'I
had a terrible time of it,' he murmured. 'Mahon is be-
hind--not very far.' We conversed in whispers, in low
whispers, as if afraid to wake up the land. Guns, thun-
der, earthquakes would not have awakened the men just
then.
"Looking around as we talked, I saw away at sea a
bright light traveling in the night. 'There's a steamer
Youth |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: "He's busy. Come on, now, you--" Babbitt reared over him. The attendant
hastily changed to a coaxing "You can come back and try to-morrow. Probably
the poor guy is off his nut."
Babbitt drove, not at all carefully or fussily, sliding viciously past trucks,
ignoring the truckmen's curses, to the City Hall; he stopped with a grind of
wheels against the curb, and ran up the marble steps to the office of the Hon.
Mr. Lucas Prout, the mayor. He bribed the mayor's doorman with a dollar; he
was instantly inside, demanding, "You remember me, Mr. Prout?
Babbitt--vice-president of the Boosters--campaigned for you? Say, have you
heard about poor Riesling? Well, I want an order on the warden or whatever
you call um of the City Prison to take me back and see him. Good. Thanks."
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: appertaining to the lady, it is most unsuitable to the origin,
character and history of the dog; for the dog was the gift to the
child from a man for whom words had anything but an Ollendorffian
value, a man almost childlike in the impulsive movements of his
untutored genius, the most single-minded of verbal
impressionists, using his great gifts of straight feeling and
right expression with a fine sincerity and a strong if, perhaps,
not fully conscious conviction. His art did not obtain, I fear,
all the credit its unsophisticated inspiration deserved. I am
alluding to the late Stephen Crane, the author of "The Red Badge
of Courage," a work of imagination which found its short moment
Some Reminiscences |
