| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Witch, et. al by Anton Chekhov: two storeys with a terrace and a verandah, with a tower and a
flagstaff on which a flag fluttered on Sundays -- they built it
in about three months, and then all the winter they were planting
big trees, and when spring came and everything began to be green
there were already avenues to the new house, a gardener and two
labourers in white aprons were digging near it, there was a
little fountain, and a globe of looking-glass flashed so
brilliantly that it was painful to look at. The house had already
been named the New Villa.
On a bright, warm morning at the end of May two horses were
brought to Obrutchanovo to the village blacksmith, Rodion Petrov.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: of doubt and speculation. Did she go quickly from under the men's
feet, or did she resist to the end, letting the sea batter her to
pieces, start her butts, wrench her frame, load her with an
increasing weight of salt water, and, dismasted, unmanageable,
rolling heavily, her boats gone, her decks swept, had she wearied
her men half to death with the unceasing labour at the pumps before
she sank with them like a stone?
However, such a case must be rare. I imagine a raft of some sort
could always be contrived; and, even if it saved no one, it would
float on and be picked up, perhaps conveying some hint of the
vanished name. Then that ship would not be, properly speaking,
The Mirror of the Sea |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: Fell upon lasting silence. Continents
And continental oceans intervene;
A sea uncharted, on a lampless isle,
Environs and confines their wandering child
In vain. The voice of generations dead
Summons me, sitting distant, to arise,
My numerous footsteps nimbly to retrace,
And, all mutation over, stretch me down
In that denoted city of the dead.
Apemama.
XXXVI - TO S. C.
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