| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic: way of the wife and old Maggie Quirk as they strove
to remove the garments from his crushed limbs. As the
neighbors watched what could be seen of these proceedings,
they whispered among themselves eulogies of the injured
man's industry and good temper, his habit of bringing
his money home to his wife, and the way he kept his Father
Mathew pledge and attended to his religious duties.
They admitted freely that, by the light of his example,
their own husbands and sons left much to be desired,
and from this wandered easily off into domestic
digressions of their own. But all the while their eyes
The Damnation of Theron Ware |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from To-morrow by Joseph Conrad: standing charter from the gas-works. You would
think he was off on a whaling cruise--three years
and a tail. Ha, ha! Not a bit of it. Ten days on
the outside. The Skimmer of the Seas was a smart
craft. Fine name, wasn't it? Mother's uncle
owned her. . . ."
He interrupted himself, and in a lowered voice,
"Did he ever tell you what mother died of?" he
asked.
"Yes," said Miss Bessie, bitterly; "from impa-
tience."
To-morrow |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: childless as well, whose present exemption from a full share in the
social burden of children is obviously unjust and unwholesome. Today
it is easy to find a widow who has at great cost to herself in pain,
danger, and disablement, borne six or eight children. In the same
town you will find rich bachelors and old maids, and married couples
with no children or with families voluntarily limited to two or three.
The eight children do not belong to the woman in any real or legal
sense. When she has reared them they pass away from her into the
community as independent persons, marrying strangers, working for
strangers, spending on the community the life that has been built up
at her expense. No more monstrous injustice could be imagined than
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