| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: patiently. Meantime she observed him with sustained attention.
The last door of all she threw open herself.
"You sleep here, senor," she murmured in a voice light like a
child's breath, offering him the lamp.
"BUENOS NOCHES, SENORITA," he said politely, taking it from her.
She didn't return the wish audibly, though her lips did move a
little, while her gaze black like a starless night never for a
moment wavered before him. He stepped in, and as he turned to
close the door she was still there motionless and disturbing, with
her voluptuous mouth and slanting eyes, with the expression of
expectant sensual ferocity of a baffled cat. He hesitated for a
Within the Tides |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Little Britain by Washington Irving: Whittington and his Cat bears witness.
The rival oracle of Little Britain is a substantial
cheesemonger, who lives in a fragment of one of the old family
mansions, and is as magnificently lodged as a round-bellied
mite in the midst of one of his own Cheshires. Indeed, he is a
man of no little standing and importance; and his renown
extends through Huggin Lane, and Lad Lane, and even unto
Aldermanbury. His opinion is very much taken in affairs of
state, having read the Sunday papers for the last half century,
together with the "Gentleman's Magazine," Rapin's "History of
England," and the "Naval Chronicle." His head is stored with
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Memorabilia by Xenophon: that beauty and wisdom have this in common, that there is a fair way
and a foul way in which to dispose of them. The vendor of beauty
purchases an evil name, but supposing the same person have discerned a
soul of beauty in his lover and makes that man his friend, we regard
his choice as sensible.[7] So is it with wisdom; he who sells it for
money to the first bidder we name a sophist,[8] as though one should
say a man who prostitutes his wisdom; but if the same man, discerning
the noble nature of another, shall teach that other every good thing,
and make him his friend, of such a one we say he does that which it is
the duty of every good citizen of gentle soul to do. In accordance
with this theory, I too, Antiphon, having my tastes, even as another
The Memorabilia |
