| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: of some perplexing intelligence, did not leave him henceforth.
A little later I moved away from the rail to look at the compass
with such a stealthy gait that the helmsman noticed it--
and I could not help noticing the unusual roundness of his eyes.
These are trifling instances, though it's to no commander's
advantage to be suspected of ludicrous eccentricities.
But I was also more seriously affected. There are to a seaman
certain words, gestures, that should in given conditions come
as naturally, as instinctively as the winking of a menaced eye.
A certain order should spring on to his lips without thinking;
a certain sign should get itself made, so to speak,
The Secret Sharer |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Love and Friendship by Jane Austen: seen the World. She had passed 2 Years at one of the first
Boarding-schools in London; had spent a fortnight in Bath and had
supped one night in Southampton.
"Beware my Laura (she would often say) Beware of the insipid
Vanities and idle Dissipations of the Metropolis of England;
Beware of the unmeaning Luxuries of Bath and of the stinking fish
of Southampton."
"Alas! (exclaimed I) how am I to avoid those evils I shall never
be exposed to? What probability is there of my ever tasting the
Dissipations of London, the Luxuries of Bath, or the stinking
Fish of Southampton? I who am doomed to waste my Days of Youth
Love and Friendship |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Land of Footprints by Stewart Edward White: his prey. The feeding is done before dawn, after which the lion
enjoys stretching out in the open until the sun is well up, and
then retiring to the nearest available cover. Still, at the risk
of seeming to be perpetually qualifying, I must instance finding
three lions actually on the stale carcass of a waterbuck at
eleven o'clock in the morning of a piping hot day! In an
undisturbed country, or one not much hunted, the early morning
hours up to say nine o'clock are quite likely to show you lions
sauntering leisurely across the open plains toward their lairs.
They go a little, stop a little, yawn, sit down a while, and
gradually work their way home. At those times you come upon them
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