| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad: which follows a thunder-clap. And all these scenes of violence
came and went accompanied by the unrefined noise of deep
vociferations proceeding from a man wounded in his paternal pride,
declaring himself obviously accursed since one of his kids was a
"slobbering idjut and the other a wicked she-devil." It was of her
that this had been said many years ago.
Mrs Verloc heard the words again in a ghostly fashion, and then the
dreary shadow of the Belgravian mansion descended upon her
shoulders. It was a crushing memory, an exhausting vision of
countless breakfast trays carried up and down innumerable stairs,
of endless haggling over pence, of the endless drudgery of
The Secret Agent |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Ruling Passion by Henry van Dyke: only fit to throw away; and the whole camp was mad. It was not
really Pierre who played the trick; but it was he who sneered that
the camp would be better off if the cook knew less about castles and
more about cooking. Jean answered that what the camp needed was to
get rid of a badreux who thought it was a joke to poison the soup.
Pierre took this as a personal allusion and requested him to discuss
the question outside. But before the discussion began he made some
general remarks about the character and pretensions of Jean.
"A marquis!" said he. "This bagoulard gives himself out for a
marquis! He is nothing of the kind,--a rank humbug. There is a
title in the family, an estate in France, it is true. But it is
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Children of the Night by Edwin Arlington Robinson: And mark it with his name forevermore?
George Crabbe
Give him the darkest inch your shelf allows,
Hide him in lonely garrets, if you will, --
But his hard, human pulse is throbbing still
With the sure strength that fearless truth endows.
In spite of all fine science disavows,
Of his plain excellence and stubborn skill
There yet remains what fashion cannot kill,
Though years have thinned the laurel from his brows.
Whether or not we read him, we can feel
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