| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: been reincarnated already in Mr. Sheriff Scott, and the degenerate
moorsmen must be content to tell the tale in prose, and to make of the
"Four Black Brothers" a unit after the fashion of the "Twelve Apostles"
or the "Three Musketeers."
Robert, Gilbert, Clement, and Andrew - in the proper Border diminutives,
Hob, Gib, Clem, and Dand Elliott - these ballad heroes, had much in
common; in particular, their high sense of the family and the family
honour; but they went diverse ways, and prospered and failed in
different businesses. According to Kirstie, "they had a' bees in their
bonnets but Hob." Hob the laird was, indeed, essentially a decent man.
An elder of the Kirk, nobody had heard an oath upon his lips, save
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: enemies regarded his oaths and solemn treaties as more to be relied on
than the tie of friendship amongst themselves. These same men, who
would shrink from too close intercourse with one another, delivered
themselves into the hands of Agesilaus without fear. And lest the
assertion should excite discredit, I may name some illustrious
examples. Such was Spithridates the Persian, who knew that
Pharnabazus,[1] whilst negotiating to marry the daughter of the great
king, was minded to seize his own daughter unwedded. Resenting such
brutality, Spithridates delivered up himself, his wife, his children,
and his whole power, into the hands of Agesilaus. Cotys[2] also, the
ruler of Paphlagonia, had refused to obey a summons from the king,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: If I do not remember where, how, and when I learned to read, I am
not likely to forget the process of being trained in the art of
reading aloud. My poor father, an admirable reader himself, was
the most exacting of masters. I reflect proudly that I must have
read that page of "Two Gentlemen of Verona" tolerably well at the
age of eight. The next time I met them was in a 5s. one-volume
edition of the dramatic works of William Shakespeare, read in
Falmouth, at odd moments of the day, to the noisy accompaniment
of calkers' mallets driving oakum into the deck-seams of a ship
in dry-dock. We had run in, in a sinking condition and with the
crew refusing duty after a month of weary battling with the gales
A Personal Record |
