| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain: I had always responded to his efforts as well as I
could, and felt a very deep and real kindness for him,
too, for the reason that if by malice of fate he knew
the one particular anecdote which I had heard oftenest
and had most hated and most loathed all my life, he
had at least spared it me. It was one which I had
heard attributed to every humorous person who had
ever stood on American soil, from Columbus down to
Artemus Ward. It was about a humorous lecturer
who flooded an ignorant audience with the killingest
jokes for an hour and never got a laugh; and then
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair: Cook County prisoners serve their time. It was even filthier and
more crowded than the county jail; all the smaller fry out of the
latter had been sifted into it--the petty thieves and swindlers,
the brawlers and vagrants. For his cell mate Jurgis had an Italian
fruit seller who had refused to pay his graft to the policeman,
and been arrested for carrying a large pocketknife; as he did not
understand a word of English our friend was glad when he left.
He gave place to a Norwegian sailor, who had lost half an ear in
a drunken brawl, and who proved to be quarrelsome, cursing Jurgis
because he moved in his bunk and caused the roaches to drop upon
the lower one. It would have been quite intolerable, staying in
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare: TRANIO.
Sir, I shall not be slack; in sign whereof,
Please ye we may contrive this afternoon,
And quaff carouses to our mistress' health;
And do as adversaries do in law,
Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.
GRUMIO, BIONDELLO.
O excellent motion! Fellows, let's be gone.
HORTENSIO.
The motion's good indeed, and be it so:--
Petruchio, I shall be your ben venuto.
The Taming of the Shrew |
