| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen: "What you saw? What did you see? Was there anything
strange about Crashaw? But I can't believe it; it is
impossible."
"Well, if you like I will tell you what I saw, or if
you please, what I think I saw, and you can judge for yourself."
"Very good, Villiers."
The noise and clamour of the street had died away,
though now and then the sound of shouting still came from the
distance, and the dull, leaden silence seemed like the quiet
after an earthquake or a storm. Villiers turned from the window
and began speaking.
The Great God Pan |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: I don't mind telling you that I hardly dared give the order.
It seemed impossible that we could touch anything without losing it,
and then our last hope would have been gone."
The terror of that gale was on him yet. I let him go on for a bit,
then said, casually--as if returning to a minor subject:
"You were very anxious to give up your mate to the shore people, I believe?"
He was. To the law. His obscure tenacity on that point had in it
something incomprehensible and a little awful; something, as it
were, mystical, quite apart from his anxiety that he should
not be suspected of "countenancing any doings of that sort."
Seven-and-thirty virtuous years at sea, of which over twenty
The Secret Sharer |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: themselves are happily delivered from the evils to come.
I have too long digressed, and therefore shall return to my
subject. I think the advantages by the proposal which I have made
are obvious and many, as well as of the highest importance.
For first, as I have already observed, it would greatly lessen
the number of Papists, with whom we are yearly over-run, being
the principal breeders of the nation, as well as our most
dangerous enemies, and who stay at home on purpose with a design
to deliver the kingdom to the Pretender, hoping to take their
advantage by the absence of so many good Protestants, who have
chosen rather to leave their country, than stay at home and pay
A Modest Proposal |
