| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: merely temperamental. But it is not always a sign of coldness.
It may be pride. There can be nothing more humiliating than to
see the shaft of one's emotion miss the mark either of laughter
or tears. Nothing more humiliating! And this for the reason
that should the mark be missed, should the open display of
emotion fail to move, then it must perish unavoidably in disgust
or contempt. No artist can be reproached for shrinking from a
risk which only fools run to meet and only genius dare confront
with impunity. In a task which mainly consists in laying one's
soul more or less bare to the world, a regard for decency, even
at the cost of success, is but the regard for one's own dignity
Some Reminiscences |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates by Howard Pyle: of thunder following each dull flash from out the cloudy,
cavernous depths. In the silence he could hear an occasional
click as of some iron implement, and he opined that the pirates
were burying the chest, though just where they were at work he
could neither see nor tell.
Still he lay there watching and listening, and by and by a puff
of warm air blew across the sand, and a thumping tumble of louder
thunder leaped from out the belly of the storm cloud, which every
minute was coming nearer and nearer. Still Tom Chist lay
watching.
Suddenly, almost unexpectedly, the three figures reappeared from
Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald: "Dear Beatrice"
So early in September Amory, provided with "six suits summer
underwear, six suits winter underwear, one sweater or T shirt,
one jersey, one overcoat, winter, etc.," set out for New England,
the land of schools.
There were Andover and Exeter with their memories of New England
deadlarge, college-like democracies; St. Mark's, Groton, St.
Regis'recruited from Boston and the Knickerbocker families of New
York; St. Paul's, with its great rinks; Pomfret and St. George's,
prosperous and well-dressed; Taft and Hotchkiss, which prepared
the wealth of the Middle West for social success at Yale;
This Side of Paradise |
