| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: gone. A country parish was, says Turgot, nothing but "an assemblage
of cabins, and of inhabitants as passive as the cabins they dwelt
in." Without an order of council, the parish could not mend the
steeple after a storm, or repair the parsonage gable. If they
grumbled at the intendant, he threw some of the chief persons into
prison, and made the parish pay the expenses of the horse patrol,
which formed the arbitrary police of France. Everywhere was
meddling. There were reports on statistics--circumstantial,
inaccurate, and useless--as statistics are too often wont to be.
Sometimes, when the people were starving, the Government sent down
charitable donations to certain parishes, on condition that the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Footnote to History by Robert Louis Stevenson: food in the bush, the first step of military preparation. The
religious sentiment of the people is indeed for peace at any price;
no pastor can bear arms; and even the layman who does so is denied
the sacraments. In the last war the college of Malua, where the
picked youth are prepared for the ministry, lost but a single
student; the rest, in the bosom of a bleeding country, and deaf to
the voices of vanity and honour, peacefully pursued their studies.
But if the church looks askance on war, the warrior in no extremity
of need or passion forgets his consideration for the church. The
houses and gardens of her ministers stand safe in the midst of
armies; a way is reserved for themselves along the beach, where
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Falk by Joseph Conrad: stir a limb, standing by the rail shapely and erect,
with one of her hands grasping a rope at the height
of her head, while the way of the tug carried slowly
past her the lingering and profound homage of the
man. There was for me an enormous significance
in the scene, the sense of having witnessed a solemn
declaration. The die was cast. After such a man-
ifestation he couldn't back out. And I reflected
that it was nothing whatever to me now. With a
rush of black smoke belching suddenly out of the
funnel, and a mad swirl of paddle-wheels provoking
Falk |
