| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner: I had plenty of time.
"I hired a little room, and subscribed to a library, so I had everything I
needed; and in the week of Christmas holidays I went to see the sea. I
walked all night, Lyndall, to escape the heat, and a little after sunrise I
got to the top of a high hill. Before me was a long, low, blue, monotonous
mountain. I walked looking at it, but I was thinking of the sea I wanted
to see. At last I wondered what that curious blue thing might be; then it
struck me it was the sea! I would have turned back again, only I was too
tired. I wonder if all the things we long to see--the churches, the
pictures, the men in Europe--will disappoint us so! You see I had dreamed
of it so long. When I was a little boy, minding sheep behind the kopje, I
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: manage to get on together,' said du Bruel, and he kissed her hands,
and we came away. But he was very wroth.
"The whole way from the Rue de la Victoire to the boulevard a perfect
torrent of venomous words poured from his mouth like a waterfall in
flood; but as the shocking language which he used on occasion was
quite unfit to print, the report is necessarily inadequate.
" 'My dear fellow, I will leave that vile, shameless opera dancer, a
worn-out jade that has been set spinning like a top to every operatic
air; a foul hussy, an organ-grinder's monkey! Oh, my dear boy, you
have taken up with an actress; may the notion of marrying your
mistress never get a hold on you. It is a torment omitted from the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: few:--The Authors of the Bible; Aristotle; Pliny; Aldrovandi; Sir
Thomas Browne; Gesner; Ray; Linnaeus; Rondeletius; Willoughby; Green;
Artedi; Sibbald; Brisson; Marten; Lacepede; Bonneterre; Desmarest;
Baron Cuvier; Frederick Cuvier; John Hunter; Owen; Scoresby; Beale;
Bennett; J. Ross Browne; the Author of Miriam Coffin; Olmstead; and
the Rev. T. Cheever. But to what ultimate generalizing purpose all
these have written, the above cited extracts will show.
Of the names in this list of whale authors, only those following Owen
ever saw living whales; and but one of them was a real professional
harpooneer and whaleman. I mean Captain Scoresby. On the separate
subject of the Greenland or right-whale, he is the best existing
Moby Dick |
