| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: coming from sea, could be kept off for a few hours longer. I was
however fated to hear the Jacobus note once more before I slept.
Mr. Burns had gone ashore after the evening meal to have, as he
said, "a look round." As it was quite dark when he announced his
intention I didn't ask him what it was he expected to see. Some
time about midnight, while sitting with a book in the saloon, I
heard cautious movements in the lobby and hailed him by name.
Burns came in, stick and hat in hand, incredibly vulgarised by his
smart shore togs, with a jaunty air and an odious twinkle in his
eye. Being asked to sit down he laid his hat and stick on the
table and after we had talked of ship affairs for a little while:
'Twixt Land & Sea |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: affection - I say, why we cannot do so here I can say nothing to,
neither shall I say anything more of it but that it remains to be lamented.
I could dwell a great while upon the calamities of this dreadful time,
and go on to describe the objects that appeared among us every day,
the dreadful extravagancies which the distraction of sick people drove
them into; how the streets began now to be fuller of frightful objects,
and families to be made even a terror to themselves. But after I have
told you, as I have above, that one man, being tied in his bed, and
finding no other way to deliver himself, set the bed on fire with his
candle, which unhappily stood within his reach, and burnt himself in
his bed; and how another, by the insufferable torment he bore, danced
A Journal of the Plague Year |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Two Brothers by Honore de Balzac: action of her true son.
Madame Descoings took Joseph by the head, and kissed him on the
forehead:--
"My child," she said, "don't tempt me. I might only lose it. The
lottery, you see, is all folly."
No more heroic words were ever uttered in the hidden dramas of
domestic life. It was, indeed, affection triumphant over inveterate
vice. At this instant, the clocks struck midnight.
"It is too late now," said Madame Descoings.
"Oh!" cried Joseph, "here are your cabalistic numbers."
The artist sprang at the paper, and rushed headlong down the staircase
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