| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: "We two whites stood over him, and his lustrous and inquiring
glance enveloped us both. I declare it looked as though he would
presently put to us some questions in an understandable language;
but he died without uttering a sound, without moving a limb,
without twitching a muscle. Only in the very last moment, as though
in response to some sign we could not see, to some whisper we could
not hear, he frowned heavily, and that frown gave to his black
death-mask an inconeivably sombre, brooding, and menacing expression.
The lustre of inquiring glance faded swiftly into vacant glassiness.
`Can you steer?' I asked the agent eagerly. He looked very dubious;
but I made a grab at his arm, and he understood at once I
Heart of Darkness |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson: close where that great society, the L. J. R., held its meetings
and drank its beer, sitting in the seats of Burns and his
companions. I think I see you, moving there by plain daylight,
beholding with your natural eyes those places that have now
become for your companion a part of the scenery of dreams. How,
in the intervals of present business, the past must echo in your
memory! Let it not echo often without some kind thoughts of your
friend,
R.L.S.
SKERRYVORE,
BOURNEMOUTH.
Kidnapped |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: tell by any means. But the third day, towards evening, the sea
smooth, and the weather calm, we saw the sea as it were covered
towards the land with something very black; not being able to
discover what it was till after some time, our chief mate, going up
the main shrouds a little way, and looking at them with a
perspective, cried out it was an army. I could not imagine what he
meant by an army, and thwarted him a little hastily. "Nay, sir,"
says he, "don't be angry, for 'tis an army, and a fleet too: for I
believe there are a thousand canoes, and you may see them paddle
along, for they are coming towards us apace."
I was a little surprised then, indeed, and so was my nephew the
Robinson Crusoe |
