| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: for the master of the tug when he came to fetch away our letters,
had not been hauled in as it should have been. I became annoyed at this,
for exactitude in some small matters is the very soul of discipline.
Then I reflected that I had myself peremptorily dismissed my
officers from duty, and by my own act had prevented the anchor
watch being formally set and things properly attended to.
I asked myself whether it was wise ever to interfere with the
established routine of duties even from the kindest of motives.
My action might have made me appear eccentric. Goodness only knew
how that absurdly whiskered mate would "account" for my conduct,
and what the whole ship thought of that informality of their new captain.
The Secret Sharer |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Bucolics by Virgil: So sweet Amyntas, and none else, to me."
DAMOETAS
"My Muse, although she be but country-bred,
Is loved by Pollio: O Pierian Maids,
Pray you, a heifer for your reader feed!"
MENALCAS
"Pollio himself too doth new verses make:
Feed ye a bull now ripe to butt with horn,
And scatter with his hooves the flying sand."
DAMOETAS
"Who loves thee, Pollio, may he thither come
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: fetch nothing; we are not moved. We are only glad.)
They gavel me, these stale and overworked stage directions,
these carbon films that got burnt out long ago and cannot now
carry any faintest thread of light. It would be well if they
could be relieved from duty and flung out in the literary back
yard to rot and disappear along with the discarded and forgotten
"steeds" and "halidomes" and similar stage-properties once so
dear to our grandfathers. But I am friendly to Mr. Howells's
stage directions; more friendly to them than to any one else's, I
think. They are done with a competent and discriminating art,
and are faithful to the requirements of a state direction's
What is Man? |
