| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Pivot of Civilization by Margaret Sanger: outbreak of the spirit of this civilization was in republican Greece;
the martyrdom of Socrates, the fearless Utopianism of Plato, the
ambitious encyclopaedism of Aristotle, mark the dawn of a new courage
and a new wilfulness in human affairs. The fear of set limitations,
of punitive and restrictive laws imposed by Fate upon human life was
visibly fading in human minds. These names mark the first clear
realization that to a large extent, and possibly to an illimitable
extent, man's moral and social life and his general destiny could be
seized upon and controlled by man. But--he must have knowledge. Said
the Ancient Civilization--and it says it still through a multitude of
vigorous voices and harsh repressive acts: ``Let man learn his duty
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: driest of all imaginable dry champagnes. Sleight of hand and
inimitable quickness are the qualities by which he lives.
Athelred, on the other hand, presents you with the spectacle of a
sincere and somewhat slow nature thinking aloud. He is the most
unready man I ever knew to shine in conversation. You may see him
sometimes wrestle with a refractory jest for a minute or two
together, and perhaps fail to throw it in the end. And there is
something singularly engaging, often instructive, in the simplicity
with which he thus exposes the process as well as the result, the
works as well as the dial of the clock. Withal he has his hours of
inspiration. Apt words come to him as if by accident, and, coming
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories by Alice Dunbar: streets are a crush of jesters and maskers, Jim Crows and clowns,
ballet girls and Mephistos, Indians and monkeys; of wild and
sudden flashes of music, of glittering pageants and comic ones,
of befeathered and belled horses; a dream of colour and melody
and fantasy gone wild in an effervescent bubble of beauty that
shifts and changes and passes kaleidoscope-like before the
bewildered eye.
A bevy of bright-eyed girls and boys of that uncertain age that
hovers between childhood and maturity, were moving down Canal
Street when there was a sudden jostle with another crowd meeting
them. For a minute there was a deafening clamour of shouts and
The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories |
