| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: or `Now I will never shake him by the hand,' but, `Now I
will never hear him.' The man presented himself as a voice.
Not of course that I did not connect him with some sort of action.
Hadn't I been told in all the tones of jealousy and admiration
that he had collected, bartered, swindled, or stolen more ivory
than all the other agents together? That was not the point.
The point was in his being a gifted creature, and that of all his
gifts the one that stood out preeminently, that carried with it
a sense of real presence, was his ability to talk, his words--
the gift of expression, the bewildering, the illuminating,
the most exalted and the most contemptible, the pulsating
Heart of Darkness |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: the capitalist in favour of the labourer) more than are paid by the
poor. "In England" (says M. de Tocqueville of even the eighteenth
century) "the poor man enjoyed the privilege of exemption from
taxation; in France, the rich." Equality before the law is as well-
nigh complete as it can be, where some are rich and others poor; and
the only privileged class, it sometimes seems to me, is the pauper,
who has neither the responsibility of self-government, nor the toil
of self-support.
A minority of malcontents, some justly, some unjustly, angry with
the present state of things, will always exist in this world. But a
majority of malcontents we shall never have, as long as the workmen
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte: reproofs wakened in her a naughty delight to provoke him: she was
never so happy as when we were all scolding her at once, and she
defying us with her bold, saucy look, and her ready words; turning
Joseph's religious curses into ridicule, baiting me, and doing just
what her father hated most - showing how her pretended insolence,
which he thought real, had more power over Heathcliff than his
kindness: how the boy would do HER bidding in anything, and HIS
only when it suited his own inclination. After behaving as badly
as possible all day, she sometimes came fondling to make it up at
night. 'Nay, Cathy,' the old man would say, 'I cannot love thee,
thou'rt worse than thy brother. Go, say thy prayers, child, and
Wuthering Heights |
