| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Father Damien by Robert Louis Stevenson: comments of the passers-by. I think (to employ a phrase of yours
which I admire) it "should be attributed" to you that you have
never visited the scene of Damien's life and death. If you had,
and had recalled it, and looked about your pleasant rooms, even
your pen perhaps would have been stayed.
Your sect (and remember, as far as any sect avows me, it is mine)
has not done ill in a worldly sense in the Hawaiian Kingdom. When
calamity befell their innocent parishioners, when leprosy descended
and took root in the Eight Islands, a QUID PRO QUO was to be looked
for. To that prosperous mission, and to you, as one of its
adornments, God had sent at last an opportunity. I know I am
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas: pocket?" asked the duke.
"One of your guards, my prince; a man of talent and merit,
whom you will like, as I and Monsieur de Chavigny do, I am
sure."
"Why does he take my comb?"
"Why do you take my lord's comb?" asked La Ramee.
Grimaud drew the comb from his pocket and passing his
fingers over the largest teeth, pronounced this one word,
"Pointed."
"True," said La Ramee.
"What does the animal say?" asked the duke.
Twenty Years After |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: with his hands in his pockets, and scouted all sentimental weakness
of those who would put the welfare of a few miserable fugitives
before great state interests!
He was as bold as a lion about it, and "mightily convinced"
not only himself, but everybody that heard him;--but then his idea
of a fugitive was only an idea of the letters that spell the
word,--or at the most, the image of a little newspaper picture of
a man with a stick and bundle with "Ran away from the subscriber"
under it. The magic of the real presence of distress,--the
imploring human eye, the frail, trembling human hand, the
despairing appeal of helpless agony,--these he had never tried.
Uncle Tom's Cabin |
