| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Economist by Xenophon: to be well off, while others are in difficulties; nor will you ever
hear such tales afloat as that this or that estate has gone to ruin
because the sower failed to sow evenly, or that the planter failed to
plant straight rows of plants, or that such an one,[1] being ignorant
what soil was best suited to bear vines, had set his plants in sterile
ground, or that another[2] was in ignorance that fallow must be broken
up for purposes of sowing, or that a third[3] was not aware that it is
good to mix manure in with the soil. No, you are much more likely to
hear said of So-and-so: No wonder the man gets in no wheat from his
farm, when he takes no pains to have it sown or properly manured. Or
of some other that he grows no wine: Of course not, when he takes no
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Falk by Joseph Conrad: man who could speak like a Dutch Uncle, and, be-
sides, Messrs. Siegers had been helping Falk with
a good bit of money from the start. In fact you
may say they made him as far as that goes.
It so happened that just at the time he turned up
here, their firm was chartering a lot of sailing ships
every year, and it suited their business that there
should be good towing facilities on the river. See?
. . . Well--there's always an ear at the keyhole--
isn't there? In fact," he lowered his tone confiden-
tially, "in this case a good friend of mine; a man
Falk |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: charm of my companions was a beguilement still effective
even under the shadow of the possibility that it was studied.
For if it occurred to me that I might occasionally excite
suspicion by the little outbreaks of my sharper passion for them,
so too I remember wondering if I mightn't see a queerness
in the traceable increase of their own demonstrations.
They were at this period extravagantly and preternaturally fond
of me; which, after all, I could reflect, was no more than a
graceful response in children perpetually bowed over and hugged.
The homage of which they were so lavish succeeded, in truth,
for my nerves, quite as well as if I never appeared to myself,
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