| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Falk by Joseph Conrad: ing, and had been thrown overboard soon after
leaving home, as a sanitary measure. Afterwards
the crew of the Borgmester Dahl thought of that
rotten carrion with tears of regret, covetousness
and despair.
She drove south. To begin with, there had been
an appearance of organisation, but soon the bonds
of discipline became relaxed. A sombre idleness
succeeded. They looked with sullen eyes at the hori-
zon. The gales increased: she lay in the trough,
the seas made a clean breach over her. On one
Falk |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Marie by H. Rider Haggard: the piece is so reduced that the merest touch suffices to fire it, thus
rendering it hair-triggered in the fullest sense of the word.
It has two flap-sights marked for 150 and 200 yards, in addition to the
fixed sight designed for firing at 100 yards.
On the lock are engraved a stag and a doe, the first lying down and the
second standing.
Of its sort and period, it is an extraordinarily well-made and handy
gun, finished with horn at the end of what is now called the tongue, and
with the stock cut away so as to leave a raised cushion against which
the cheek of the shooter rests.
What charge it took I do not know, but I should imagine from 2 1/2 to 3
Marie |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: beginning to leave off breeding:--but in what year of our Lord that was--
I would not give a halfpenny to know, said my uncle Toby.
--Only, an' please your honour, it makes a story look the better in the
face--
--'Tis thy own, Trim, so ornament it after thy own fashion; and take any
date, continued my uncle Toby, looking pleasantly upon him--take any date
in the whole world thou chusest, and put it to--thou art heartily welcome--
The corporal bowed; for of every century, and of every year of that
century, from the first creation of the world down to Noah's flood; and
from Noah's flood to the birth of Abraham; through all the pilgrimages of
the patriarchs, to the departure of the Israelites out of Egypt--and
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