| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad: he's breaking up. I see, and he himself is well aware--
I assume I am speaking to a man of sense--he is well
aware that his legs are giving out."
"His legs--ah!" Mr. Sterne was disconcerted, and
then turned sulky. "You may call it his legs if you
like; what I want to know is whether he intends to clear
out quietly. That's a good one, too! His legs!
Pooh!"
"Why, yes. Only look at the way he walks." Mr.
Van Wyk took him up in a perfectly cool and undoubt-
ing tone. "The question, however, is whether your
End of the Tether |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from In Darkest England and The Way Out by General William Booth: past. Our experience goes to show that when you have, by Divine grace,
or by any consideration of the advantages of a good life, or the
disadvantages of a bad one, produced in a man circumstanced as those
whom we have been describing, the resolution to turn over a new leaf,
the temptations and difficulties he has to encounter will ordinarily
master him, and undo all that has been done, if he still continues to
be surrounded by old companions and allurements to sin.
Now, look at the force of the temptations this class has to fight
against. What is it that leads people to do wrong--people of all
classes, rich as well as poor? Not the desire to sin. They do not want
to sin; many of them do not know what sin is, but they have certain
In Darkest England and The Way Out |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: warmed up or not! You can row easily and gently all day, and you
can row yourself blind and black in the face in ten minutes, just
as you like. It has been long agreed that there is no way in which
a man can accomplish so much labor with his muscles as in rowing.
It is in the boat, then, that man finds the largest extension of
his volitional and muscular existence; and yet he may tax both of
them so slightly, in that most delicious of exercises, that he
shall mentally write his sermon, or his poem, or recall the remarks
he has made in company and put them in form for the public, as well
as in his easy-chair.
I dare not publicly name the rare joys, the infinite delights, that
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
