| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The United States Bill of Rights: or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble,
and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
II
A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,
the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
III
No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house,
without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war,
but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The American by Henry James: he is by no means sitting for his portrait. But listless
as he lounges there, rather baffled on the aesthetic question,
and guilty of the damning fault (as we have lately discovered it to be)
of confounding the merit of the artist with that of his work
(for he admires the squinting Madonna of the young lady with
the boyish coiffure, because he thinks the young lady herself
uncommonly taking), he is a sufficiently promising acquaintance.
Decision, salubrity, jocosity, prosperity, seem to hover
within his call; he is evidently a practical man, but the idea
in his case, has undefined and mysterious boundaries,
which invite the imagination to bestir itself on his behalf.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: robustness, for instance, so often the sign of good moral
balance. That's a consideration. It is not, indeed, pleasant to
be stamped upon, but the very thoroughness of the operation,
implying not only a careful reading, but some real insight into
work whose qualities and defects, whatever they may be, are not
so much on the surface, is something to be thankful for in view
of the fact that it may happen to one's work to be condemned
without being read at all. This is the most fatuous adventure
that can well happen to a writer venturing his soul amongst
criticisms. It can do one no harm, of course, but it is
disagreeable. It is disagreeable in the same way as discovering
Some Reminiscences |
