| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: which peopled Scandinavia, and penetrated to Britain; whose priestesses had
their shrines in German forests, and gave out the oracle for peace or war.
We have in us the blood of a womanhood that was never bought and never
sold; that wore no veil, and had no foot bound; whose realised ideal of
marriage was sexual companionship and an equality in duty and labour; who
stood side by side with the males they loved in peace or war, and whose
children, when they had borne them, sucked manhood from their breasts, and
even through their foetal existence heard a brave heart beat above them.
We are women of a breed whose racial ideal was no Helen of Troy, passed
passively from male hand to male hand, as men pass gold or lead; but that
Brynhild whom Segurd found, clad in helm and byrne, the warrior maid, who
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister: Meanwhile Scipio arrived with extreme leisure at the rails. He
stuck his hands into his pockets and his head out at the very
small train. His bleached blue eyes shut to slits as he watched
the rear car in its smoke-blur ooze away westward among the
mounded bluffs. "Lucky it's out of range," I thought. But now
Scipio spoke to it.
"Why, you seem to think you've left me behind," he began easily,
in fawning tones. "You're too much of a kid to have such
thoughts. Age some." His next remark grew less wheedling. "I
wouldn't be a bit proud to meet yu'. Why, if I was seen
travellin' with yu', I'd have to explain it to my friends! Think
The Virginian |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Enoch Arden, &c. by Alfred Tennyson: To know him more, I lost it, knew him less;
Fought with what seem'd my own uncharity;
Sat at his table; drank his costly wines;
Made more and more allowance for his talk;
Went further, fool! and trusted him with all,
All my poor scrapings from a dozen years
Of dust and deskwork: there is no such mine,
None; but a gulf of ruin, swallowing gold,
Not making. Ruin'd! ruin'd! the sea roars
Ruin: a fearful night!'
`Not fearful; fair,'
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