| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith: "Why did you sign it?" asked Judge Bowker, turning to Tom.
She looked at Babcock. He nodded assent, and then she answered:--
"I allus signed it so since he left me."
There was a pleading, tender pathos in her words that startled
Babcock. He could hardly believe the voice to be Tom's.
The judge looked at her with a quick, penetrating glance, which
broadened into an expression of kindly interest when he read her
entire honesty in her face. Then he turned to the president of
the board.
"When you awarded this contract, whom did you expect to do the
work, Mrs. Grogan or her husband.' "
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Myths and Myth-Makers by John Fiske: too, had many other representatives besides ships and cows. In
a future paper it will be shown that they were sometimes
regarded as angels or houris; at present it more nearly
concerns us to know that they appear, throughout all Aryan
mythology, under the form of birds. It used to be a matter of
hopeless wonder to me that Aladdin's innocent request for a
roc's egg to hang in the dome of his palace should have been
regarded as a crime worthy of punishment by the loss of the
wonderful lamp; the obscurest part of the whole affair being
perhaps the Jinni's passionate allusion to the egg as his
master: "Wretch! dost thou command me to bring thee my
Myths and Myth-Makers |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: the opportunity of having a good look at the face of every
foremast man as they filed past me to go to the after braces.
At breakfast time, eating nothing myself, I presided with such
frigid dignity that the two mates were only too glad to escape from
the cabin as soon as decency permitted; and all the time the dual
working of my mind distracted me almost to the point of insanity.
I was constantly watching myself, my secret self, as dependent
on my actions as my own personality, sleeping in that bed,
behind that door which faced me as I sat at the head of the table.
It was very much like being mad, only it was worse because one was
aware of it.
The Secret Sharer |
