| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Octopus by Frank Norris: break that stretched along the roadside bordering the Broderson
ranch. But as they drew near to Caraher's saloon and grocery,
about half a mile outside of Bonneville, they recognised Harran's
horse tied to the railing in front of it. Annixter left the
others and went in to see Harran.
"Harran," he said, when the two had sat down on either side of
one of the small tables, "you've got to make up your mind one way
or another pretty soon. What are you going to do? Are you going
to stand by and see the rest of the Committee spending money by
the bucketful in this thing and keep your hands in your pockets?
If we win, you'll benefit just as much as the rest of us. I
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from War and the Future by H. G. Wells: there is a simpler sort of mind which desires merely a date, and
a more complex kind which wants particulars. To the former class
belong most of the men out at the front. They are so bored by
this war that they would welcome any peace that did not
definitely admit defeat--and examine the particulars later. The
"tone" of the German army, to judge by its captured letters, is
even lower. It would welcome peace in any form. Never in the
whole history of the world has a war been so universally
unpopular as this war.
The mind of the soldier is obsessed by a vision of home-coming
for good, so vivid and alluring that it blots out nearly every
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Book of Remarkable Criminals by H. B. Irving: the good-humoured carelessness of that most engaging of all
eighteenth century malefactors, Deacon Brodie. It is quite
otherwise with Charley Peace. There is little enough gay or
debonair about him. Compared with Sheppard, Peace is as drab as
the surroundings of mid-Victorian crime are drab compared with
the picturesqueness of eighteenth century England.
Crime in the nineteenth century becomes more scientific in its
methods and in its detection also. The revolver places a more
hasty, less decorous weapon than the old-fashioned pistol in the
hands of the determined burglar. The literature of crime, such
as it is, becomes vulgar and prosaic. Peace has no charm about
A Book of Remarkable Criminals |
