| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: without this other arm? And I'm thinking Moby Dick doesn't bite so
much as he swallows."
"Well, then," interrupted Bunger, "give him your left arm for bait to
get the right. Do you know, gentlemen"--very gravely and
mathematically bowing to each Captain in succession--"Do you know,
gentlemen, that the digestive organs of the whale are so inscrutably
constructed by Divine Providence, that it is quite impossible for him
to completely digest even a man's arm? And he knows it too. So that
what you take for the White Whale's malice is only his awkwardness.
For he never means to swallow a single limb; he only thinks to
terrify by feints. But sometimes he is like the old juggling fellow,
Moby Dick |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber: his presence to Mary Louise.
"Oh, Charlie!" called Mary Louise. "Charlee! Can you come
here just a minute?"
"You bet!" answered Charlie, with the accent on the you; and
came.
"Charlie, is there a back yard, or something, where the sun
is, you know--some nice, grassy place where I can sit, and dry my
hair, and let the breezes blow it?"
"Back yard!" grinned Charlie. "I guess you're new to N' York,
all right, with ground costin' a million or so a foot. Not much
they ain't no back yard, unless you'd give that name to an
Buttered Side Down |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: of consolation, to live? Oh, no! The only joy that he can now know will
be when he composes his shattered spirit to peace and death. Yet he enjoys
one comfort, the offspring of solitude and delirium; he believes that when
in dreams he holds converse with his friends and derives from that communion
consolation for his miseries or excitements to his vengeance, that they are
not the creations of his fancy, but the beings themselves who visit him from
the regions of a remote world. This faith gives a solemnity to his reveries
that render them to me almost as imposing and interesting as truth.
Our conversations are not always confined to his own history and misfortunes.
On every point of general literature he displays unbounded knowledge
and a quick and piercing apprehension. His eloquence is forcible and touching;
Frankenstein |
