| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from To-morrow by Joseph Conrad: That old man came flying to Colebrook three
years ago all in black broadcloth (had lost his wife
lately then), getting out of a third-class smoker
as if the devil had been at his heels; and the only
thing that brought him down was a letter--a hoax
probably. Some joker had written to him about a
seafaring man with some such name who was sup-
posed to be hanging about some girl or other, either
in Colebrook or in the neighbourhood. "Funny,
ain't it?" The old chap had been advertising in
the London papers for Harry Hagberd, and offer-
To-morrow |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: of fact, does not consist in forcing more or less wise methods and
ideas upon the great mass of the nation, but in giving to the ideas,
good or bad, that they already possess a practical turn which will
make them conduce to the general welfare of the State. If old-
established prejudices and customs bring a country into a bad way, the
people will renounce their errors of their own accord. Are not losses
the result of economical errors of every kind? And is it not,
therefore, to every one's interest to rectify them in the long run?
"Luckily I found a tabula rasa in this district. They have followed my
advice, and the land is well cultivated; but there had been no
previous errors in agriculture, and the soil was good to begin with,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Edingburgh Picturesque Notes by Robert Louis Stevenson: the different appearances of nature seemed each to
contain its own legend ready made, which it was his to
call forth: in such or such a place, only such or such
events ought with propriety to happen; and in this spirit
he made the LADY OF THE LAKE for Ben Venue, the HEART OF
MIDLOTHIAN for Edinburgh, and the PIRATE, so
indifferently written but so romantically conceived, for
the desolate islands and roaring tideways of the North.
The common run of mankind have, from generation to
generation, an instinct almost as delicate as that of
Scott; but where he created new things, they only forget
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