| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Witch, et. al by Anton Chekhov: where have the evil spirits taken it to? It changes its course,
and, mind you, it will go on changing till such time as it has
dried up altogether. There used to be marshes and ponds beyond
Kurgasovo, and where are they now? And what has become of the
streams? Here in this very wood we used to have a stream flowing,
and such a stream that the peasants used to set creels in it and
caught pike; wild ducks used to spend the winter by it, and
nowadays there is no water in it worth speaking of, even at the
spring floods. Yes, brother, look where you will, things are bad
everywhere. Everywhere!"
A silence followed. Meliton sank into thought, with his eyes
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll: indignantly to my other writings as a proof that I am incapable of
such a deed: I will not (as I might) point to the strong moral purpose
of this poem itself, to the arithmetical principles so cautiously
inculcated in it, or to its noble teachings in Natural History--I will
take the more prosaic course of simply explaining how it happened.
The Bellman, who was almost morbidly sensitive about appearances,
used to have the bowsprit unshipped once or twice a week to be revarnished,
and it more than once happened, when the time came for replacing it, that
no one on board could remember which end of the ship it belonged to.
They knew it was not of the slightest use to appeal to the Bellman about it--
he would only refer to his Naval Code, and read out in pathetic tones
The Hunting of the Snark |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: of your favourite, I do not want to hear them; but I want to know the
purport of them, that I may be able to judge of your mode of approaching
your fair one.
Ctesippus will be able to tell you, he said; for if, as he avers, the sound
of my words is always dinning in his ears, he must have a very accurate
knowledge and recollection of them.
Yes, indeed, said Ctesippus; I know only too well; and very ridiculous the
tale is: for although he is a lover, and very devotedly in love, he has
nothing particular to talk about to his beloved which a child might not
say. Now is not that ridiculous? He can only speak of the wealth of
Democrates, which the whole city celebrates, and grandfather Lysis, and the
Lysis |
