| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad: move in the least, waiting to recognize the voice, with
an appalling strain of prudence.
A bulkhead lamp blazed on the white paint, the crim-
son plush, the brown varnish of mahogany tops. The
white wood packing-case under the bed-place had re-
mained unopened for three years now, as though Cap-
tain Whalley had felt that, after the Fair Maid was
gone, there could be no abiding-place on earth for his
affections. His hands rested on his knees; his hand-
some head with big eyebrows presented a rigid profile
to the doorway. The expected voice spoke out at
End of the Tether |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lin McLean by Owen Wister: next, telescoped to shapelessness. Moreover, if you stopped your Amazon
in the middle, it dislocated her, and she merely went back and took a
fresh start. The chant was always the same, but you never learned it. As
soon as it began, your mind snapped shut like the upper berth in a
Pullman. You must have uttered appropriate words--even a parrot will--for
next you were eating things--pie, ham, hot cakes--as fast as you could.
Twenty minutes of swallowing, and all aboard for Ogden, with your
pile-driven stomach dumb with amazement. The Strasburg goose is not
dieted with greater velocity, and "biscuit-shooter" is a grand word. Very
likely some Homer of the railroad yards first said it--for what men upon
the present earth so speak with imagination's tongue as we Americans?
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: "Lyovótchka" got up he could send the proof-sheets off by
post.
¹Pazanki, tracks of a hare, name given to the
last joint of the hind legs.
²A Moscow monthly, founded by Katkóf, who
somehow managed to edit both this and the daily
"Moskóvskiya Vyédomosti," on which "Uncle
Kóstya" worked at the same time.
My father carried them off to his study to have "just one
last look," and by the evening it would be just as bad again, the
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