| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: is highly venerated in Brittany, and Marcas was a Breton.
Study the name once more: Z Marcas! The man's whole life lies in this
fantastic juxtaposition of seven letters; seven! the most significant
of all the cabalistic numbers. And he died at five-and-thirty, so his
life extended over seven lustres.
Marcas! Does it not hint of some precious object that is broken with a
fall, with or without a crash?
I had finished studying the law in Paris in 1836. I lived at that time
in the Rue Corneille in a house where none but students came to lodge,
one of those large houses where there is a winding staircase quite at
the back lighted below from the street, higher up by borrowed lights,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: could hardly find it in our hearts to regret this, for it made the
upward trip a very sociable one. At every lodge that was open,
Favonius (who knows everybody) had a friend, and we must slip
ashore in a canoe to leave the mail and refresh the inner man.
An angler, like an Arab, regards hospitality as a religious duty.
There seems to be something in the craft which inclines the heart
to kindness and good-fellowship. Few anglers have I seen who were
not pleasant to meet, and ready to do a good turn to a fellow-
fisherman with the gift of a killing fly or the loan of a rod. Not
their own particular and well-proved favourite, of course, for that
is a treasure which no decent man would borrow; but with that
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: view. When he turned up on board in the usual course, he sipped
the cup of coffee placidly, asked me if I was satisfied - and I
hardly listened to the harbour gossip he dropped slowly in his low,
voice-saving enunciation. I had then troubles of my own. My ship
chartered, my thoughts dwelling on the success of a quick round
voyage, I had been suddenly confronted by a shortage of bags. A
catastrophe! The stock of one especial kind, called pockets,
seemed to be totally exhausted. A consignment was shortly expected
- it was afloat, on its way, but, meantime, the loading of my ship
dead stopped, I had enough to worry about. My consignees, who had
received me with such heartiness on my arrival, now, in the
'Twixt Land & Sea |
