| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from One Basket by Edna Ferber: glad. I want our house, with a dining-room set, and a mahogany
bed, and one of those overstuffed sets in the living room, and
all the housework to do. I'm scared. I'm scared I won't get it.
What'll I do if I don't?"
And he, wordlessly: "Will you wait for me, Tessie, and keep on
thinking about me? And will you keep yourself like you are so
that if I come back----"
Aloud, she said: "I guess you'll get stuck on one of those
French girls. I should worry! They say wages at the watch
factory are going to be raised, workers are so scarce. I'll
probably be as rich as Angie Hatton time you get back."
 One Basket |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: horrid place! my very blood chills at the mention of its name;
the place where so many of my comrades had been locked up,
and from whence they went to the fatal tree; the place where
my mother suffered so deeply, where I was brought into the
world, and from whence I expected no redemption but by an
infamous death: to conclude, the place that had so long
expected me, and which with so much art and success I had
so long avoided.
I was not fixed indeed; 'tis impossible to describe the terror
of my mind, when I was first brought in, and when I looked
around upon all the horrors of that dismal place. I looked on
 Moll Flanders |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Russia in 1919 by Arthur Ransome: who were going home after the breaking off of official
relations by Sweden. Some months earlier I had got leave
from the Bolsheviks to go into Russia to get further material
for my history of the revolution, but at the last moment there
was opposition and it seemed likely that I should be refused
permission. Fortunately, however, a copy of the Morning
Post reached Stockholm, containing a report of a lecture by
Mr. Lockhart in which he had said that as I had been out of
Russia for six months I had no right to speak of conditions
there. Armed with this I argued that it would be very
unfair if I were not allowed to come and see things for
|