| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: through wonderful adventures to be related seriatim. I haven't
known distinguished men on whom I could pass fatuous remarks. I
haven't been mixed up with great or scandalous affairs. This is
but a bit of psychological document, and even so, I haven't
written it with a view to put forward any conclusion of my own."
But my objector was not placated. These were good reasons for
not writing at all--not a defence of what stood written already,
he said.
I admit that almost anything, anything in the world, would serve
as a good reason for not writing at all. But since I have
written them, all I want to say in their defence is that these
Some Reminiscences |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The American by Henry James: Not from the marquis, my dear Newman; he wasn't a man you could go and talk
things over with in a sociable, common-sense way. Did he ever seem
to want to have you on the premises--did he ever try to see you alone?
Did he ever ask you to come and smoke a cigar with him of an evening,
or step in, when you had been calling on the ladies, and take something?
I don't think you would have got much encouragement out of HIM.
And as for the old lady, she struck one as an uncommonly strong dose.
They have a great expression here, you know; they call it 'sympathetic.'
Everything is sympathetic--or ought to be. Now Madame de Bellegarde
is about as sympathetic as that mustard-pot. They're a d--
d cold-blooded lot, any way; I felt it awfully at that ball of theirs.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson: with a startling loudness, the chorus of a song of old Beranger's:-
"Commissaire! Commissaire!
Colin bat sa menagere."
The stones of Castel-le-Gachis thrilled at this audacious
innovation. Hitherto had the night been sacred to repose and
nightcaps; and now what was this? Window after window was opened;
matches scratched, and candles began to flicker; swollen sleepy
faces peered forth into the starlight. There were the two figures
before the Commissary's house, each bolt upright, with head thrown
back and eyes interrogating the starry heavens; the guitar wailed,
shouted, and reverberated like half an orchestra; and the voices,
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