| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Ivanhoe by Walter Scott: art ill to please with thy woodcraft. I pray thee
be more conformable in this matter of my ransom.
At a word---since I must needs, for once, hold a
candle to the devil---what ransom am I to pay for
walking on Watling-street, without having fifty
men at my back?''
``Were it not well,'' said the Lieutenant of the
gang apart to the Captain, ``that the Prior should
name the Jew's ransom, and the Jew name the
Prior's?''
``Thou art a mad knave,'' said the Captain, ``but
Ivanhoe |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: breeze, sat up and stared round him. As he did so the sun dipped
sharply, as if ashamed of being detected in a sympathising
attitude, and the clearing, which during the day was all light,
became suddenly all darkness, where the fire gleamed like an eye.
Dain walked slowly towards the creek, and, divesting himself of
his torn sarong, his only garment, entered the water cautiously.
He had had nothing to eat that day, and had not dared show
himself in daylight by the water-side to drink. Now, as he swam
silently, he swallowed a few mouthfuls of water that lapped about
his lips. This did him good, and he walked with greater
confidence in himself and others as he returned towards the fire.
Almayer's Folly |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death by Patrick Henry: the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated;
we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have
implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and
Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced
additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded;
and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne!
In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and
reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free--
if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which
we have been so long contending--if we mean not basely to abandon the noble
struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged
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