| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: describe very distinct."
"I promise you it would be distinct if it should dawn on you at
all." I saw that the charm of our topic overflowed for my
companion into an emotion as lively as my own. "At any rate," he
went on, "I can speak for myself: there's an idea in my work
without which I wouldn't have given a straw for the whole job.
It's the finest fullest intention of the lot, and the application
of it has been, I think, a triumph of patience, of ingenuity. I
ought to leave that to somebody else to say; but that nobody does
say it is precisely what we're talking about. It stretches, this
little trick of mine, from book to book, and everything else,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: being a prolifick dyet, there are more children born in Roman
Catholick countries about nine months after Lent, the markets
will be more glutted than usual, because the number of Popish
infants, is at least three to one in this kingdom, and therefore
it will have one other collateral advantage, by lessening the
number of Papists among us.
I have already computed the charge of nursing a beggar's child
(in which list I reckon all cottagers, labourers, and four-fifths
of the farmers) to be about two shillings per annum, rags
included; and I believe no gentleman would repine to give ten
shillings for the carcass of a good fat child, which, as I have
A Modest Proposal |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Human Drift by Jack London: MAUD. [Turning back with new resolve.] Let me see you punch the
bag,--er--Bob.
FITZSIMMONS. You sing first.
MAUD. No; you punch first.
FITZSIMMONS. I don't believe you are Harry -
MAUD. [Hastily.] All right, I'll sing. You sit down over there
and turn your back.
[FITZSIMMONS obeys.]
[MAUD walks over to the table toward right. She is about to sing,
when she notices FITZSIMMONS' cigarette case, picks it up, and in
an aside reads his name on it and speaks.]
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