| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Child of Storm by H. Rider Haggard: suppose, is fatalism, or, in other words, all these things happened
because they must happen. A poor conclusion to reach after so much
thought and striving, and not complimentary to man and his boasted
powers of free will; still, one to which many of us are often driven,
especially if we have lived among savages, where such dramas work
themselves out openly and swiftly, unhidden from our eyes by the veils
and subterfuges of civilisation. At least, there is this comfort about
it--that, if we are but feathers blown by the wind, how can the
individual feather be blamed because it did not travel against, turn or
keep back the wind?
Well, let me return from these speculations to the history of the facts
Child of Storm |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: now it was all soothing affection, and esteem seemed to have rivalled
love. He adverted to her narrative, and spoke with warmth of the
oppression she had endured.--His eyes, glowing with a lambent flame,
told her how much he wished to restore her to liberty and love;
but he kissed her hand, as if it had been that of a saint; and
spoke of the loss of her child, as if it had been his own.--
What could have been more flattering to Maria?--Every instance of
self-denial was registered in her heart, and she loved him, for
loving her too well to give way to the transports of passion.
They met again and again; and Darnford declared, while passion
suffused his cheeks, that he never before knew what it was to
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: Feldleutnantswitwe ONCE before he goes."
In the evening of that day it rained heavily. I went to the post office,
and as I stood on the steps, umbrellaless, hesitating before plunging into
the slushy road, a little, hesitating voice seemed to come from under my
elbow.
I looked down. It was the First of the Barons with the black bag and an
umbrella. Was I mad? Was I sane? He was asking me to share the latter.
But I was exceedingly nice, a trifle diffident, appropriately reverential.
Together we walked through the mud and slush.
Now, there is something peculiarly intimate in sharing an umbrella.
It is apt to put one on the same footing as brushing a man's coat for
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