| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Legend of Montrose by Walter Scott: and though they were easily enough recalled by the prospect of
fresh adventures and more plunder, yet the opportunity of success
was, in the meantime, lost, and could not afterwards be
recovered. This circumstance serves to show, even if history had
not made us acquainted with the same fact, that the Highlanders
had never been accustomed to make war with the view of permanent
conquest, but only with the hope of deriving temporary advantage,
or deciding some immediate quarrel. It also explains the reason
why Montrose, with all his splendid successes, never obtained any
secure or permanent footing in the Lowlands, and why even those
Lowland noblemen and gentlemen, who were inclined to the royal
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: Shall be engraved the sack of Orleans,
The treacherous manner of his mournful death
And what a terror he had been to France.
But, lords, in all our bloody massacre,
I muse we met not with the Dauphin's grace,
His new-come champion, virtuous Joan of Arc,
Nor any of his false confederates.
BEDFORD.
'Tis thought, Lord Talbot, when the fight began,
Rous'd on the sudden from their drowsy beds,
They did amongst the troops of armed men
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: at the recollection of these delights. `Oh, he enlarged my mind!'
`Good-bye,' said I. He shook hands and vanished in the night.
Sometimes I ask myself whether I had ever really seen him--
whether it was possible to meet such a phenomenon! . . .
"When I woke up shortly after midnight his warning came to my mind
with its hint of danger that seemed, in the starred darkness,
real enough to make me get up for the purpose of having a look round.
On the hill a big fire burned, illuminating fitfully a crooked corner
of the station-house. One of the agents with a picket of a few of
our blacks, armed for the purpose, was keeping guard over the ivory;
but deep within the forest, red gleams that wavered, that seemed
Heart of Darkness |
