| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart: and lilt of the lullaby. The little darkies, eyes rolling,
preternaturally solemn, linked arms and swayed rhythmically,
right, left, right, left. The glasses ceased clinking; sturdy
citizens forgot their steak and beer for a moment and listened,
knife and fork poised. Under the table the Dozent's hand pressed
its captive affectionately, his eyes no longer on Le Grande, but
on the woman across, his sweetheart, she who would be mother of
his children. The words meant little to the audience; the rich,
rolling Southern lullaby held them rapt:--
"Doan ye Cry, mah honey--
Doan ye weep no mo',
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: kick them (as is too frequent a practice) for fear of a
miscarriage.
Many other advantages might be enumerated. For instance, the
addition of some thousand carcasses in our exportation of
barrel'd beef: the propagation of swine's flesh, and improvement
in the art of making good bacon, so much wanted among us by the
great destruction of pigs, too frequent at our tables; which are
no way comparable in taste or magnificence to a well grown, fat
yearly child, which roasted whole will make a considerable figure
at a Lord Mayor's feast, or any other publick entertainment. But
this, and many others, I omit, being studious of brevity.
A Modest Proposal |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Secret Places of the Heart by H. G. Wells: sensitive man--he might have felt something of a fool. He
might have felt premature and presumptuous. Red he was and
the others he knew were red also, but why show it? That is
the peculiar distress of people like ourselves, who have some
sense of history and some sense of a larger life within us
than our merely personal life. We don't want to go on with
the old story merely. We want to live somehow in that larger
life and to live for its greater ends and lose something
unbearable of ourselves, and in wanting to do that we are
only wanting to do what nearly everybody perhaps is ripe to
do and will presently want to do. When the New Age Martineau
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