| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: folding stool, half smothered by the heavy coats hanging there.
We listened to the steward going into the bathroom out of
the saloon, filling the water bottles there, scrubbing the bath,
setting things to rights, whisk, bang, clatter--out again
into the saloon--turn the key--click. Such was my scheme
for keeping my second self invisible. Nothing better could
be contrived under the circumstances. And there we sat;
I at my writing desk ready to appear busy with some papers,
he behind me out of sight of the door. It would not have
been prudent to talk in daytime; and I could not have stood
the excitement of that queer sense of whispering to myself.
The Secret Sharer |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: myself with guessing, she was too much pre-occupied with her own
pains, and possibly making too much noise herself, to be conscious of
the pandemonium downstairs.
A great deal of the fiendishness of schoolboys and the cruelty of
children to their elders is produced just in this way. Elders cannot
be superhuman beings and suffering fellow-creatures at the same time.
If you pose as a little god, you must pose for better for worse.
How Little We Know About Our Parents
The relation between parent and child has cruel moments for the parent
even when money is no object, and the material worries are delegated
to servants and school teachers. The child and the parent are
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Men of Iron by Howard Pyle: "And, after all," said another of the young squires, "old Bruin
was not so ill-pleased, methinks. That was a shrewd blow he
fetched thee on the crown, Falworth. Marry, I would not have had
it on my own skull for a silver penny."
CHAPTER 7
So little does it take to make a body's reputation.
That night all the squires' quarters buzzed with the story of how
the new boy, Falworth, had answered Sir James Lee to his face
without fear, and had exchanged blows with him hand to hand.
Walter Blunt himself was moved to some show of interest.
"What said he to thee, Falworth?" asked he.
Men of Iron |
