| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen: fate! Alas!"--sighed he, and was again silent. "Great Heaven! What is come to
me! Never have I thought or felt like this before! It must be the summer air
that affects me with feelings almost as disquieting as they are refreshing."
He felt in his pocket for the papers. "These police-reports will soon stem the
torrent of my ideas, and effectually hinder any rebellious overflowing of the
time-worn banks of official duties"; he said to himself consolingly, while his
eye ran over the first page. "DAME TIGBRITH, tragedy in five acts." "What is
that? And yet it is undeniably my own handwriting. Have I written the tragedy?
Wonderful, very wonderful! --And this--what have I here? 'INTRIGUE ON THE
RAMPARTS; or THE DAY OF REPENTANCE: vaudeville with new songs to the most
favorite airs.' The deuce! Where did I get all this rubbish? Some one must
Fairy Tales |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Chance by Joseph Conrad: enough humanity to leave her alone. At first she was made much of,
in an offensively patronising manner. The connection with the great
de Barral gratified their vanity even in the moment of the smash.
They dragged her to their place of worship, whatever it might have
been, where the congregation stared at her, and they gave parties to
other beings like themselves at which they exhibited her with
ignoble self-satisfaction. She did not know how to defend herself
from their importunities, insolence and exigencies. She lived
amongst them, a passive victim, quivering in every nerve, as if she
were flayed. After the trial her position became still worse. On
the least occasion and even on no occasions at all she was scolded,
Chance |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: the staircases, in each bedroom--yea, and in chambers even more
sacred than these. They chased one into retirement, but they
blossomed in chiefest splendor round the bar, and they were all
used, every reeking one of them.
Just before I began to feel deathly sick another reporter
grappled me. What he wanted to know was the precise area of
India in square miles. I referred him to Whittaker. He had
never heard of Whittaker. He wanted it from my own mouth, and I
would not tell him. Then he swerved off, just like the other
man, to details of journalism in our own country. I ventured to
suggest that the interior economy of a paper most concerned the
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