| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: hail-fellow-well-met with all the elect, from the highest down.
How tangled up and absurd that is! How are you going to have a
republic under a king? How are you going to have a republic at
all, where the head of the government is absolute, holds his place
forever, and has no parliament, no council to meddle or make in his
affairs, nobody voted for, nobody elected, nobody in the whole
universe with a voice in the government, nobody asked to take a
hand in its matters, and nobody ALLOWED to do it? Fine republic,
ain't it?"
"Well, yes - it IS a little different from the idea I had - but I
thought I might go around and get acquainted with the grandees,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas: had received Buckingham's smiles and attentions and sighs
while he was present; but what was the good of sighing,
smiling and kneeling at a distance? Can one tell in what
direction the winds in the Channel, which toss mighty
vessels to and fro, carry such sighs as these. The duke
could not fail to mark this change, and his heart was
cruelly hurt. Of a sensitive character, proud and
susceptible of deep attachment, he cursed the day on which
such a passion had entered his heart. The looks he cast,
from time to time at Madame, became colder by degrees at the
chilling complexion of his thoughts. He could hardly yet
Ten Years Later |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: to a ship brought-to in order to ride out a gale with wave after
wave passing under her breast. I could see her resting in the
tumult of the elements like a sea-bird sleeping in wild weather
upon the raging waters with its head tucked under its wing. In
imaginative precision, in true feeling, this is one of the most
expressive sentences I have ever heard on human lips. But as to
taking the foresail off that ship before we put her head under her
wing, I had my grave doubts. They were justified. That long
enduring piece of canvas was confiscated by the arbitrary decree of
the West Wind, to whom belong the lives of men and the contrivances
of their hands within the limits of his kingdom. With the sound of
The Mirror of the Sea |
