| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte: Nelly Dean, sewing and singing a song; which was often interrupted
from within by harsh words of scorn and intolerance, uttered in far
from musical accents.
'I'd rayther, by th' haulf, hev' 'em swearing i' my lugs fro'h morn
to neeght, nor hearken ye hahsiver!' said the tenant of the
kitchen, in answer to an unheard speech of Nelly's. 'It's a
blazing shame, that I cannot oppen t' blessed Book, but yah set up
them glories to sattan, and all t' flaysome wickednesses that iver
were born into th' warld! Oh! ye're a raight nowt; and shoo's
another; and that poor lad 'll be lost atween ye. Poor lad!' he
added, with a groan; 'he's witched: I'm sartin on't. Oh, Lord,
Wuthering Heights |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Myths and Myth-Makers by John Fiske: intervene between their composition and the beginning of
recorded history. The tenth century B. C. is the latest date
which will account for all the phenomena involved in the case,
and with this result we must be satisfied. Even on this
showing, the Iliad and Odyssey appear as the oldest existing
specimens of Aryan literature, save perhaps the hymns of the
Rig-Veda and the sacred books of the Avesta.
The apparent difficulty of preserving such long poems for
three or four centuries without the aid of writing may seem at
first sight to justify the hypothesis of Wolf, that they are
mere collections of ancient ballads, like those which make up
Myths and Myth-Makers |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: touch. He was the oldest member by a long way in that company,
and I was, if I may say so, its temporarily adopted baby. He had
been a pilot longer than any man in the boat could remember;
thirty--forty years. He did not seem certain himself, but it
could be found out, he suggested, in the archives of the
Pilot-office. He had been pensioned off years before, but he
went out from force of habit; and, as my friend the patron of the
company once confided to me in a whisper, "the old chap did no
harm. He was not in the way." They treated him with rough
deference. One and another would address some insignificant
remark to him now and again, but nobody really took any notice of
A Personal Record |
