| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner: steady light and find harbour, and escape the rocks.
"'And that light flickered and flared, as it listed. It went this way and
it went that; it burnt blue, and green, and red; now it disappeared
altogether, and then it burnt up again. And men, far out at sea, kept
their eyes fixed where they knew the light should be: saying, 'We are
safe; the great light will lead us when we near the rocks.' And on dark
nights men drifted nearer and nearer; and in the stillness of the midnight
they struck on the lighthouse rocks and went down at its feet.
"'What now shall be done to that light, in that it was not a rushlight; in
that it was set on high by the hands of men, and in that men trusted it?
Shall it not be put out?'
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu: these little things move me so deeply? It is because I have a
most 'unbalanced intellect,' I suppose." Then, looking out on
Florence, she cries, "God! how beautiful it is, and how glad I am
that I am alive to-day!" And she tells me that she is drinking
in the beauty like wine, "wine, golden and scented, and shining,
fit for the gods; and the gods have drunk it, the dead gods of
Etruria, two thousand years ago. Did I say dead? No, for the
gods are immortal, and one might still find them loitering in
some solitary dell on the grey hillsides of Fiesole. Have I seen
them? Yes, looking with dreaming eyes, I have found them sitting
under the olives, in their grave, strong, antique
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad: another dwelling-place some distance away from the buildings. In it,
under a tall cross much out of the perpendicular, slept the man who
had seen the beginning of all this; who had planned and had watched
the construction of this outpost of progress. He had been, at home, an
unsuccessful painter who, weary of pursuing fame on an empty stomach,
had gone out there through high protections. He had been the first
chief of that station. Makola had watched the energetic artist die of
fever in the just finished house with his usual kind of "I told you
so" indifference. Then, for a time, he dwelt alone with his family,
his account books, and the Evil Spirit that rules the lands under the
equator. He got on very well with his god. Perhaps he had propitiated
Tales of Unrest |
