| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: On the whole river there was nothing that looked half so nautical.
He resembled a pilot, which to a seaman is trustworthiness personified.
It was difficult to realize his work was not out there in the luminous
estuary, but behind him, within the brooding gloom.
Between us there was, as I have already said somewhere,
the bond of the sea. Besides holding our hearts together
through long periods of separation, it had the effect of making
us tolerant of each other's yarns--and even convictions.
The Lawyer--the best of old fellows--had, because of his many
years and many virtues, the only cushion on deck, and was lying
on the only rug. The Accountant had brought out already a box
Heart of Darkness |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: itself put marrying out of the question. His conviction, his
apprehension, his obsession, in short, wasn't a privilege he could
invite a woman to share; and that consequence of it was precisely
what was the matter with him. Something or other lay in wait for
him, amid the twists and the turns of the months and the years,
like a crouching Beast in the Jungle. It signified little whether
the crouching Beast were destined to slay him or to be slain. The
definite point was the inevitable spring of the creature; and the
definite lesson from that was that a man of feeling didn't cause
himself to be accompanied by a lady on a tiger-hunt. Such was the
image under which he had ended by figuring his life.
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Anabasis by Xenophon: and property in Scillus, where he lived for many
years before having to move once more, to settle
in Corinth. He died in 354 B.C.
The Anabasis is his story of the march to Persia
to aid Cyrus, who enlisted Greek help to try and
take the throne from Artaxerxes, and the ensuing
return of the Greeks, in which Xenophon played a
leading role. This occurred between 401 B.C. and
March 399 B.C.
PREPARER'S NOTE
This was typed from Dakyns' series, "The Works of Xenophon," a
Anabasis |
