| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: `Look out! look out!' Then a crash as if the sky had fallen on my head.
They say that for over ten minutes hardly anything was to be seen
of the ship--just the three masts and a bit of the forecastle head
and of the poop all awash driving along in a smother of foam.
It was a miracle that they found us, jammed together behind the forebitts.
It's clear that I meant business, because I was holding him by the throat
still when they picked us up. He was black in the face. It was too much
for them. It seems they rushed us aft together, gripped as we were,
screaming `Murder!' like a lot of lunatics, and broke into the cuddy.
And the ship running for her life, touch and go all the time, any minute
her last in a sea fit to turn your hair gray only a-looking at it.
The Secret Sharer |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Father Damien by Robert Louis Stevenson: upon this head, I will be franker still, and tell you that perhaps
nowhere in the world can a man taste a more pleasurable sense of
contrast than when he passes from Damien's "Chinatown" at Kalawao
to the beautiful Bishop-Home at Kalaupapa. At this point, in my
desire to make all fair for you, I will break my rule and adduce
Catholic testimony. Here is a passage from my diary about my visit
to the Chinatown, from which you will see how it is (even now)
regarded by its own officials: "We went round all the dormitories,
refectories, etc. - dark and dingy enough, with a superficial
cleanliness, which he" [Mr. Dutton, the lay-brother] "did not seek
to defend. 'It is almost decent,' said he; 'the sisters will make
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: Umare-kawareba
Nobe no cho. [10]
[If (in our next existence) we be born into the state of butterflies upon
the moor, then perchance we may be happy together!]
Nadeshiko ni
Chocho shiroshi --
Tare no kon? [11]
[On the pink-flower there is a white butterfly: whose spirit, I wonder?]
Ichi-nichi no
Tsuma to miekeri --
Cho futatsu.
Kwaidan |
