| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Vailima Letters by Robert Louis Stevenson: native coming down with the trunk of a cocoa palm across his
shoulder; his brown breast glittering with sweat and oil:
'Talofa' - 'Talofa, alii - You see that white man? He speak
for you.' 'White man he gone up here?' - 'Ioe (Yes)' -
'Tofa, alii' - 'Tofa, soifua!' I put on Jack up the steep
path, till he is all as white as shaving stick - Brown's
euxesis, wish I had some - past Tanugamanono, a bush village
- see into the houses as I pass - they are open sheds
scattered on a green - see the brown folk sitting there,
suckling kids, sleeping on their stiff wooden pillows - then
on through the wood path - and here I find the mysterious
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: caused by that last infirmity of noble ships, without concerning
myself much with the why or the wherefore. The surmise of my
maturer years is that, bored by her interminable life, the
venerable antiquity was simply yawning with ennui at every seam.
But at the time I did not know; I knew generally very little, and
least of all what I was doing in that GALERE.
I remember that, exactly as in the comedy of Moliere, my uncle
asked the precise question in the very words - not of my
confidential valet, however, but across great distances of land, in
a letter whose mocking but indulgent turn ill concealed his almost
paternal anxiety. I fancy I tried to convey to him my (utterly
The Mirror of the Sea |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Land that Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: to be followed by the screams and moans of the wounded, the cursing
of the men and the hoarse commands of the ship's officers. They were
splendid--they and their crew. Never before had I been so proud of
my nationality as I was that moment. In all the chaos which followed
the torpedoing of the liner no officer or member of the crew lost his
head or showed in the slightest any degree of panic or fear.
While we were attempting to lower boats, the submarine emerged
and trained guns on us. The officer in command ordered us to
lower our flag, but this the captain of the liner refused to do.
The ship was listing frightfully to starboard, rendering the port
boats useless, while half the starboard boats had been demolished
The Land that Time Forgot |
