| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: like a see saw plank, since there was no one at the other end to
balance it against our two dusty and travel-stained figures.
Then we hastened up stairs to bed in a room smelling of pine
planks, and I was fast asleep before my head touched the pillow.
In the morning my tutor (he was a student of the Cracow
University) woke me up early, and as we were dressing remarked:
"There seems to be a lot of people staying in this hotel. I have
heard a noise of talking up till eleven o'clock." This statement
surprised me; I had heard no noise whatever, having slept like a
top.
We went down-stairs into the long and narrow dining-room with its
A Personal Record |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: yesterday. Then again addressing me, he added: He has been complaining
lately of having a headache when he rises in the morning: now why should
you not make him believe that you know a cure for the headache?
Why not, I said; but will he come?
He will be sure to come, he replied.
He came as he was bidden, and sat down between Critias and me. Great
amusement was occasioned by every one pushing with might and main at his
neighbour in order to make a place for him next to themselves, until at the
two ends of the row one had to get up and the other was rolled over
sideways. Now I, my friend, was beginning to feel awkward; my former bold
belief in my powers of conversing with him had vanished. And when Critias
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Koran: the torment of hell! Grace from thy Lord, that is the grand bliss!
And we have only made it easy for thy tongue, that haply they may be
mindful. Then watch thou; verily, they are watching too!
THE CHAPTER OF THE KNEELING
(XLV. Mecca.)
IN the name of the merciful and compassionate God.
HA MIM. A revelation of the Book from God, the mighty, the wise.
Verily, in the heavens and the earth are signs to those who believe;
and in your creation and the beasts that are spread abroad are signs
to a people who are sure; and in the alternation of night and day, and
the provision that God has sent down from heaven and quickened thereby
The Koran |
