| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister: out and let the murder be done would have been the evil act in
this case? To disobey the sign-post was RIGHT; and I trust that
you now perceive the same act may wear as many different hues of
right or wrong as the rainbow, according to the atmosphere in
which it is done. It is not safe to say of any man, "He did evil
that good might come." Was the thing that he did, in the first
place, evil? That is the question.
Forgive my asking you to use your mind. It is a thing which no
novelist should expect of his reader, and we will go back at once
to Judge Henry and his meditations about lynching.
He was well aware that if he was to touch at all upon this
The Virginian |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Iliad by Homer: and made it fly harmlessly over the chariot. Diomed then threw,
and Pallas Minerva drove the spear into the pit of Mars's stomach
where his under-girdle went round him. There Diomed wounded him,
tearing his fair flesh and then drawing his spear out again. Mars
roared as loudly as nine or ten thousand men in the thick of a
fight, and the Achaeans and Trojans were struck with panic, so
terrible was the cry he raised.
As a dark cloud in the sky when it comes on to blow after heat,
even so did Diomed son of Tydeus see Mars ascend into the broad
heavens. With all speed he reached high Olympus, home of the
gods, and in great pain sat down beside Jove the son of Saturn.
The Iliad |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: writer;--I mean of ancient days.--
Trim, by the help of his fore-finger, laid flat upon the table, and the
edge of his hand striking across it at right angles, made a shift to tell
his story so, that priests and virgins might have listened to it;--and the
story being told,--the dialogue went on as follows.
Chapter 3.XXI.
--I would be picquetted to death, cried the corporal, as he concluded
Susannah's story, before I would suffer the woman to come to any harm,--
'twas my fault, an' please your honour,--not her's.
Corporal Trim, replied my uncle Toby, putting on his hat which lay upon the
table,--if any thing can be said to be a fault, when the service absolutely
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