| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart: in order but Peter's room. That was to have a special cleaning
later. Next, still with her hair tied up, she had spent two hours
with her violin, standing very close to the stove to save fuel
and keep her fingers warm. She played well that morning: even her
own critical ears were satisfied, and the Portier, repairing a
window lock in an empty room below, was entranced. He sat on the
window sill in the biting cold and listened. Many music students
had lived in the apartment with the great salon; there had been
much music of one sort and another, but none like this.
"She tears my heart from my bosom," muttered the Portier,
sighing, and almost swallowed a screw that he held in his teeth.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: haply we may deprive ourselves of the means to master the barbarians."
[8] B.C. 394. See "Hell." IV. ii. 9-23; Diod. xiv. 83; Grote, "H. G."
ix. 429.
[9] Lit. "all the barbarians."
[10] See "Econ." i. 23.
Again, if it is a sacred duty to hate the Persian, who of old set out
on a campaign to enslave Hellas; the Persian, who to-day makes
alliance with these (no matter to him which the party, provided it
will help him to work the greater mischief[11]); or gives presents to
those (who will take them and do the greatest harm to his foes the
Hellenes); or else concocts a peace that shall presently involve us in
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad: nauseated by what he had seen, that he had come upon the Professor.
Under these conditions which make for irascibility in a sound,
normal man, this meeting was specially unwelcome to Chief Inspector
Heat. He had not been thinking of the Professor; he had not been
thinking of any individual anarchist at all. The complexion of
that case had somehow forced upon him the general idea of the
absurdity of things human, which in the abstract is sufficiently
annoying to an unphilosophical temperament, and in concrete
instances becomes exasperating beyond endurance. At the beginning
of his career Chief Inspector Heat had been concerned with the more
energetic forms of thieving. He had gained his spurs in that
The Secret Agent |
