| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Dreams & Dust by Don Marquis: How everything would seem, and how--
But no! not now; there is no way
Back to the Land of Yesterday.
OCTOBER
CEASE to call him sad and sober,
Merriest of months, October!
Patron of the bursting bins,
Reveler in wayside inns,
I can nowhere find a trace
Of the pensive in his face;
There is mingled wit and folly,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: was Jay Gatsby, and I didn't lay eyes on him again for over four
years--even after I'd met him on Long Island I didn't realize it was the
same man.
That was nineteen-seventeen. By the next year I had a few beaux myself,
and I began to play in tournaments, so I didn't see Daisy very often.
She went with a slightly older crowd--when she went with anyone at all.
Wild rumors were circulating about her--how her mother had found her
packing her bag one winter night to go to New York and say good-by to a
soldier who was going overseas. She was effectually prevented, but she
wasn't on speaking terms with her family for several weeks. After
that she didn't play around with the soldiers any more, but only
 The Great Gatsby |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Mother by Owen Wister: "'Very likely he took her with him. She is probably at Monte Carlo.'"
"'Scarcely in August, I fancy. And I'll tell you what, Ethel. I have been
counting it up. She has lost twenty-four thousand dollars in the Standard
Egg alone. It takes a good deal of surplus to stand that.'"
"'Serve her right,' said Ethel 'And I would say so to her face.'"
"September brought freshness to the stock market but not to me. Mr.
Beverly, like the well-to-do man that he was, remained away in Europe
until October should require his presence as a guiding hand in the
office. Thus was I left without his buoyant consolation in the face of my
investments."
"Petunias were being adjusted on a four per cent basis; Dutchess and
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