| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: combinations--a man's mental process exactly. With memory to
help, man preserves his observations and reasonings, reflects
upon them, adds to them, recombines, and so proceeds, stage by
stage, to far results--from the teakettle to the ocean
greyhound's complex engine; from personal labor to slave labor;
from wigwam to palace; from the capricious chase to agriculture
and stored food; from nomadic life to stable government and
concentrated authority; from incoherent hordes to massed armies.
The ant has observation, the reasoning faculty, and the
preserving adjunct of a prodigious memory; she has duplicated
man's development and the essential features of his civilization,
What is Man? |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Polly of the Circus by Margaret Mayo: which to be imprisoned--even Polly could not deny that. The
broad window at the back with its white and pink chintz curtains
on the inside, and its frame of ivy on the outside, spoke of
singing birds and sunshine all day long. Everything from the
white ceiling to the sweet-smelling matting that covered the
floor was spotlessly clean; the cane-bottomed rocker near the
curved window-seat with its pretty pillows told of days when a
convalescent might look in comfort at the garden beneath; the
counterpane, with its old-fashioned rose pattern, the little
white tidies on the back of each chair, and Mandy crooning beside
the window, all helped to make a homelike picture.
|
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: our earthly toys are broken, - said the schoolmistress.
Hush, - said I, - what will the divinity-student say?
[I thought she was hit, that time; - but the shot must have gone
over her, or on one side of her; she did not flinch.]
Oh, - said the schoolmistress, - he must look out for my sister's
heresies; I am afraid he will be too busy with them to take care of
mine.
Do you mean to say, - said I, - that it is YOUR SISTER whom that
student -
[The young fellow commonly known as John, who had been sitting on
the barrel, smoking, jumped off just then, kicked over the barrel,
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
