| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson: "I think little of what war is or is not," I replied. "But you
weary me with claiming my respect. Your brother is a good man, and
you are a bad one - neither more nor less."
"Had I been Alexander - " he began.
"It is so we all dupe ourselves," I cried. "Had I been St. Paul,
it would have been all one; I would have made the same hash of that
career that you now see me making of my own."
"I tell you," he cried, bearing down my interruption, "had I been
the least petty chieftain in the Highlands, had I been the least
king of naked negroes in the African desert, my people would have
adored me. A bad man, am I? Ah! but I was born for a good tyrant!
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen: beyond, and the voice of articulate-speaking men echo in the
waste void that bounds our thought. As analogies go, that is a
pretty good analogy of what I have done; you can understand now
a little of what I felt as I stood here one evening; it was a
summer evening, and the valley looked much as it does now; I
stood here, and saw before me the unutterable, the unthinkable
gulf that yawns profound between two worlds, the world of matter
and the world of spirit; I saw the great empty deep stretch dim
before me, and in that instant a bridge of light leapt from the
earth to the unknown shore, and the abyss was spanned. You may
look in Browne Faber's book, if you like, and you will find
The Great God Pan |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Enoch Arden, &c. by Alfred Tennyson: Came from his county, or could answer him,
If question'd, aught of what he cared to know.
And dull the voyage was with long delays,
The vessel scarce sea-worthy; but evermore
His fancy fled before the lazy wind
Returning, till beneath a clouded moon
He like a lover down thro' all his blood
Drew in the dewy meadowy morning-breath
Of England, blown across her ghostly wall:
And that same morning officers and men
Levied a kindly tax upon themselves,
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