| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: he don't know there is such a thing as a Tux--as a dinner-jacket. If he was to
come in here now, he'd think we were a bunch of--of--Why, gosh, I swear, he
wouldn't know what to think! Yes, sir, they're jealous!"
Chum Frink agreed, "That's so. But what I mind is their lack of culture and
appreciation of the Beautiful--if you'll excuse me for being highbrow. Now, I
like to give a high-class lecture, and read some of my best poetry--not the
newspaper stuff but the magazine things. But say, when I get out in the tall
grass, there's nothing will take but a lot of cheesy old stories and slang and
junk that if any of us were to indulge in it here, he'd get the gate so fast
it would make his head swim."
Vergil Gunch summed it up: "Fact is, we're mighty lucky to be living among a
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson: I was secure of victory. He was but waiting to capitulate, and
looked about for any potent to relieve the strain. In the gush of
light from the bedroom door I spied a cigar-holder on the desk.
'That is well coloured,' said I.
'Will you take a cigar?' said he.
I took it and held it up unlighted. 'Now,' said I, 'you promise
me.'
'I promise you you won't have any trouble from natives that have
drunk at my place,' he replied.
'That is all I ask,' said I, and showed it was not by immediately
offering to try his stock.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: ALCIBIADES: Most decidedly not (it seems to me). (These words are omitted
in several MSS.)
SOCRATES: For you designed to kill, not the first who offered, but
Pericles himself?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And if you made many attempts, and each time failed to recognize
Pericles, you would never attack him?
ALCIBIADES: Never.
SOCRATES: Well, but if Orestes in like manner had not known his mother, do
you think that he would ever have laid hands upon her?
ALCIBIADES: No.
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