| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: Davidson could well afford the smiles he gave us for our chaff. He
made lots of money in her. She belonged to a portly Chinaman
resembling a mandarin in a picture-book, with goggles and thin
drooping moustaches, and as dignified as only a Celestial knows how
to be.
"The best of Chinamen as employers is that they have such
gentlemanly instincts. Once they become convinced that you are a
straight man, they give you their unbounded confidence. You simply
can't do wrong, then. And they are pretty quick judges of
character, too. Davidson's Chinaman was the first to find out his
worth, on some theoretical principle. One day in his counting-
Within the Tides |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri: Seeing that even cities have an end.
All things of yours have their mortality,
Even as yourselves; but it is hidden in some
That a long while endure, and lives are short;
And as the turning of the lunar heaven
Covers and bares the shores without a pause,
In the like manner fortune does with Florence.
Therefore should not appear a marvellous thing
What I shall say of the great Florentines
Of whom the fame is hidden in the Past.
I saw the Ughi, saw the Catellini,
The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: Saturday night which immediately preceded it, to argue it over, in bed with
my mother: By which contrivance, if you consider, Sir, with yourself,. .
..
These my father, humorously enough, called his beds of justice;--for from
the two different counsels taken in these two different humours, a middle
one was generally found out which touched the point of wisdom as well, as
if he had got drunk and sober a hundred times.
I must not be made a secret of to the world, that this answers full as well
in literary discussions, as either in military or conjugal; but it is not
every author that can try the experiment as the Goths and Vandals did it--
or, if he can, may it be always for his body's health; and to do it, as my
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