| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: Heemskirk, to whom through several years' service together in the
East he had become a sort of devoted henchman. What was most
amazing in the detention of the Bonito was his story how,
proceeding to take possession of the firearms as ordered, he
discovered that there were no firearms on board. All he found in
the fore-cabin was an empty rack for the proper number of eighteen
rifles, but of the rifles themselves never a single one anywhere in
the ship. The mate of the brig, who looked rather ill and behaved
excitedly, as though he were perhaps a lunatic, wanted him to
believe that Captain Allen knew nothing of this; that it was he,
the mate, who had recently sold these rifles in the dead of night
'Twixt Land & Sea |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: Asia, spending himself on scenes of romantic interest, of
superlative sanctity; but what was present to him everywhere was
that for a man who had known what HE had known the world was vulgar
and vain. The state of mind in which he had lived for so many
years shone out to him, in reflexion, as a light that coloured and
refined, a light beside which the glow of the East was garish cheap
and thin. The terrible truth was that he had lost--with everything
else--a distinction as well the things he saw couldn't help being
common when he had become common to look at them. He was simply
now one of them himself--he was in the dust, without a peg for the
sense of difference; and there were hours when, before the temples
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Crowd by Gustave le Bon: articles, society gossip, and financial puffs. There can be no
question to-day of a paper rich enough to allow its contributors
to air their personal opinions, and such opinions would be of
slight weight with readers who only ask to be kept informed or to
be amused, and who suspect every affirmation of being prompted by
motives of speculation. Even the critics have ceased to be able
to assure the success of a book or a play. They are capable of
doing harm, but not of doing a service. The papers are so
conscious of the uselessness of everything in the shape of
criticism or personal opinion, that they have reached the point
of suppressing literary criticism, confining themselves to citing
|
