| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: the only thing for it was to come to and wait for the turn
of the tide.
The sea-reach of the Thames stretched before us like the beginning of an
interminable waterway. In the offing the sea and the sky were welded
together without a joint, and in the luminous space the tanned sails
of the barges drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in red
clusters of canvas sharply peaked, with gleams of varnished sprits.
A haze rested on the low shores that ran out to sea in vanishing flatness.
The air was dark above Gravesend, and farther back still seemed
condensed into a mournful gloom, brooding motionless over the biggest,
and the greatest, town on earth.
Heart of Darkness |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin: scarcely be lifted into a boat by one person. Captain Cook,
in his second voyage, says, that this plant at Kerguelen Land
rises from a greater depth than twenty-four fathoms; "and
as it does not grow in a perpendicular direction, but makes a
very acute angle with the bottom, and much of it afterwards
spreads many fathoms on the surface of the sea, I am well
warranted to say that some of it grows to the length of sixty
fathoms and upwards." I do not suppose the stem of any
other plant attains so great a length as three hundred and
sixty feet, as stated by Captain Cook. Captain Fitz Roy,
moreover, found it growing [7] up from the greater depth of
The Voyage of the Beagle |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen: and every thing in it burst forth.
"Well! what a delightful room this is! I never
saw anything so charming! Only think, Mamma, how it
is improved since I was here last! I always thought it
such a sweet place, ma'am! (turning to Mrs. Dashwood)
but you have made it so charming! Only look, sister,
how delightful every thing is! How I should like such
a house for myself! Should not you, Mr. Palmer?"
Mr. Palmer made her no answer, and did not even raise
his eyes from the newspaper.
"Mr. Palmer does not hear me," said she, laughing;
Sense and Sensibility |
