| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: stood a bountifully supplied table, laden with inviolable bottles,
with laughing decanters whose red facets sparkled merrily. He
recognized the singers from the theatre, male and female, mingled with
charming women, all ready to begin an artists' spree and waiting only
for him. Sarrasine restrained a feeling of displeasure and put a good
face on the matter. He had hoped for a dimly lighted chamber, his
mistress leaning over a brazier, a jealous rival within two steps,
death and love, confidences exchanged in low tones, heart to heart,
hazardous kisses, and faces so near together that La Zambinella's hair
would have touched caressingly his desire-laden brow, burning with
happiness.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: and the high standard attained by women in all university examinations to
which they are admitted, and their universal success in the administration
of parochial matters, wherever they have been allowed to share it, proves
their intellectual and moral fitness for the new forms of labour.
All these statements are certainly interesting, and may be unanswerable.
And yet--if the truth be told, it is not ultimately on these grounds that
many of us base our hope and our certitude with regard to the future of
woman. Our conviction as to the plenitude of her powers for the adequate
performance of lofty labours in these new fields, springs not at all from a
categorical enumeration of the attainments or performances of individual
women or bodies of women in the past or present; it has another source.
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Crisis in Russia by Arthur Ransome: that "the shock of revolution in England would ensure the
final defeat of capitalism," but he said at the same time that
it would be felt at once throughout the world and cause such
reverberations as would paralyze industry everywhere. And
that is why, although Russia is an agricultural country, the
Communist plans for her reconstruction are concerned first
of all not with agriculture, but with industry. In their
schemes for the future of the world, Russia's part is that of a
gigantic farm, but in their schemes for the immediate future
of Russia, their eyes are fixed continually on the nearer
object of making her so far self-supporting that, even if
|
