| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: which he too had stored away in years gone by, and then long
neglected; and, behold! the letters are as faded and
sorrowfully disappointing as the icicle. This is merely a
simile poetically worked out; and yet it is in such as these,
and some others, to be mentioned further on, that the author
seems at his best. Wherever he has really written after the
old model, there is something to be deprecated: in spite of
all the spirit and freshness, in spite of his happy
assumption of that cheerful acceptation of things as they
are, which, rightly or wrongly, we come to attribute to the
ideal fabulist, there is ever a sense as of something a
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Child of Storm by H. Rider Haggard: The third regiment was on our shattered lines. We closed up, we fought
like devils, even the bearer boys rushed into the fray. From all sides
they poured down upon us, for we had made a ring; every minute men died
by hundreds, and, though their numbers grew few, not one of the Amawombe
yielded. I was fighting with a spear now, though how it came into my
hand I cannot remember for certain. I think, however, I wrenched it
from a man who rushed at me and was stabbed before he could strike. I
killed a captain with this spear, for as he fell I recognised his face.
It was that of one of Cetewayo's companions to whom I had sold some
cloth at Nodwengu. The fallen were piled up quite thick around me--we
were using them as a breastwork, friend and foe together. I saw Scowl's
Child of Storm |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Othello by William Shakespeare: That erres in Ignorance, and not in Cunning,
I haue no iudgement in an honest face.
I prythee call him backe
Oth. Went he hence now?
Des. I sooth; so humbled,
That he hath left part of his greefe with mee
To suffer with him. Good Loue, call him backe
Othel. Not now (sweet Desdemon) some other time
Des. But shall't be shortly?
Oth. The sooner (Sweet) for you
Des. Shall't be to night, at Supper?
Othello |
