| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: executioner. The two families thus thrown into mourning were much
respected; their complaints obtained a hearing, and little by little
it came to be believed that all the victims whom the king's
silversmith had sent to the scaffold were innocent. Some persons
declared that the cruel miser imitated the king, and sought to put
terror and gibbets between himself and his fellow-men; others said
that he had never been robbed at all,--that these melancholy
executions were the result of cool calculations, and that their real
object was to relieve him of all fear for his treasure.
The first effect of these rumors was to isolate Maitre Cornelius. The
Touraineans treated him like a leper, called him the "tortionnaire,"
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling: the women who govern them, out of the rank-and-file and sent to take
up points alone. A good man once started, goes forward; but an
average man, so soon as the woman loses interest in his success as a
tribute to her power, comes back to the battalion and is no more
heard of.
Wressley bore the first copy of his book to Simla and, blushing and
stammering, presented it to Miss Venner. She read a little of it.
I give her review verbatim:--"Oh, your book? It's all about those
how-wid Wajahs. I didn't understand it."
. . . . . . . . .
Wressley of the Foreign Office was broken, smashed,--I am not
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: success of his scheme. Trusting to Malays was poor work; but
then even Malays have some sense and understand their own
interest. All would be well--must be well. At this point in his
meditation he found himself at the foot of the steps leading to
the verandah of his home. From the low point of land where he
stood he could see both branches of the river. The main branch
of the Pantai was lost in complete darkness, for the fire at the
Rajah's had gone out altogether; but up the Sambir reach his eye
could follow the long line of Malay houses crowding the bank,
with here and there a dim light twinkling through bamboo walls,
or a smoky torch burning on the platforms built out over the
Almayer's Folly |
