| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: and day, and the chronicle has changed its complexion somewhat in
every age. Like some great building that has suffered many
modifications of successive generations of architects, some sombre
weather-beaten pile, the delight of a poet, the story would drive the
commentator and the industrious winnower of words, facts, and dates to
despair. The narrator believes in it, as all superstitious minds in
Flanders likewise believe; and is not a whit wiser nor more credulous
than his audience. But as it would be impossible to make a harmony of
all the different renderings, here are the outlines of the story;
stripped, it may be, of its picturesque quaintness, but with all its
bold disregard of historical truth, and its moral teachings approved
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: hide him from justice. This oath she might justly take, and
did so, and so she was dismissed.
It is easy to judge what a fright I was in upon this occasion,
and it was impossible for my governess ever to bring me to
dress in that disguise again; for, as I told her, I should certainly
betray myself.
My poor partner in this mischief was now in a bad case, for
he was carried away before my Lord Mayor, and by his worship
committed to Newgate, and the people that took him were so
willing, as well as able, to prosecute him, that they offered
themselves to enter into recognisances to appear at the sessions
Moll Flanders |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: "I've promised you - I've said I would come - and I shall come of
my own free will. You shall wait for me on board. I shall get up
the side - by myself, and walk up to you on the deck and say:
'Here I am, kid.' And then - and then I shall be carried off. But
it will be no man who will carry me off - it will be the brig, your
brig - our brig. . . . I love the beauty!"
She heard an inarticulate sound, something like a moan wrung out by
pain or delight, and glided away. There was that other man on the
other verandah, that dark, surly Dutchman who could make trouble
between Jasper and her father, bring about a quarrel, ugly words,
and perhaps a physical collision. What a horrible situation! But,
'Twixt Land & Sea |
