| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: of my heavy mourning. We were living together, quite alone, in a
small house on the outskirts of the town of T----. That
afternoon, instead of going out to play in the large yard which
we shared with our landlord, I had lingered in the room in which
my father generally wrote. What emboldened me to clamber into
his chair I am sure I don't know, but a couple of hours afterward
he discovered me kneeling in it with my elbows on the table and
my head held in both hands over the MS. of loose pages. I was
greatly confused, expecting to get into trouble. He stood in the
doorway looking at me with some surprise, but the only thing he
said after a moment of silence was:
A Personal Record |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: village of Brenzett standing out darkly across the
water, a spire in a clump of trees; and still further
out the perpendicular column of a lighthouse, look-
ing in the distance no bigger than a lead pencil,
marks the vanishing-point of the land. The coun-
try at the back of Brenzett is low and flat, but the
bay is fairly well sheltered from the seas, and occa-
sionally a big ship, windbound or through stress
of weather, makes use of the anchoring ground a
mile and a half due north from you as you stand
at the back door of the "Ship Inn" in Brenzett.
Amy Foster |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Wrong Box by Stevenson & Osbourne: silent, Mr Finsbury, and filled with very singular echoes.'
'Kind of Jack-in-the-box feeling?' enquired Michael, 'as if all
these empty trains might be filled with policemen waiting for a
signal? and Sir Charles Warren perched among the girders with a
silver whistle to his lips? It's guilt, Pitman.'
In this uneasy frame of mind they walked nearly the whole length
of the departure platform, and at the western extremity became
aware of a slender figure standing back against a pillar. The
figure was plainly sunk into a deep abstraction; he was not aware
of their approach, but gazed far abroad over the sunlit station.
Michael stopped.
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