| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad: anything from a picture-frame maker to a lock-smith; an employer of
labour in a small way. But there was also about him an
indescribable air which no mechanic could have acquired in the
practice of his handicraft however dishonestly exercised: the air
common to men who live on the vices, the follies, or the baser
fears of mankind; the air of moral nihilism common to keepers of
gambling hells and disorderly houses; to private detectives and
inquiry agents; to drink sellers and, I should say, to the sellers
of invigorating electric belts and to the inventors of patent
medicines. But of that last I am not sure, not having carried my
investigations so far into the depths. For all I know, the
The Secret Agent |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Rig Veda: from
both of you, O Agni:
Ne'er may the Maruts, Indra, Visnu slight us. Preserve us evermore,
ye
Gods, with blessings.
HYMN XCIV. Indra-Agni.
1. As rain from out the cloud, for you, Indra and Agni, from
my soul
The Rig Veda |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad: becility? It was impossible to imagine, or rather,
it was only too easy to imagine.
I was alone on the poop. The ship having no
steerage way, I had sent the helmsman away to sit
down or lie down somewhere in the shade. The
men's strength was so reduced that all unnecessary
calls on it had to be avoided. It was the austere
Gambril with the grizzly beard. He went away
readily enough, but he was so weakened by re-
peated bouts of fever, poor fellow, that in order to
get down the poop ladder he had to turn sideways
The Shadow Line |
