| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Walking by Henry David Thoreau: the trapper's coat emits the odor of musquash even; it is a
sweeter scent to me than that which commonly exhales from the
merchant's or the scholar's garments. When I go into their
wardrobes and handle their vestments, I am reminded of no grassy
plains and flowery meads which they have frequented, but of dusty
merchants' exchanges and libraries rather.
A tanned skin is something more than respectable, and perhaps
olive is a fitter color than white for a man--a denizen of the
woods. "The pale white man!" I do not wonder that the African
pitied him. Darwin the naturalist says, "A white man bathing by
the side of a Tahitian was like a plant bleached by the
Walking |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: prophets know how to turn faith to account.--Du Bruel would have me go
home with him," he continued, "and we went slowly back. It was three
o'clock. Before he appeared, he heard a stir in the kitchen, saw
preparations going forward, and glanced at me as he asked the cook the
reason of this.
" 'Madame ordered dinner,' said the woman. 'Madame dressed and ordered
a cab, and then she changed her mind and ordered it again for the
theatre this evening.'
" 'Good,' exclaimed du Bruel, 'what did I tell you?'
"We entered the house stealthily. No one was there. We went from room
to room until we reached a little boudoir, and came upon Tullia in
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: him he might not have been so eager and full of hope as he stood
watching the last canoe of the Lingard expedition disappear in
the bend up the river. When, turning round, he beheld the pretty
little house, the big godowns built neatly by an army of Chinese
carpenters, the new jetty round which were clustered the trading
canoes, he felt a sudden elation in the thought that the world
was his.
But the world had to be conquered first, and its conquest was not
so easy as he thought. He was very soon made to understand that
he was not wanted in that corner of it where old Lingard and his
own weak will placed him, in the midst of unscrupulous intrigues
Almayer's Folly |
