| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Fanny Herself by Edna Ferber: details of their starved existence. Fanny was often shocked
when they told their age--twenty-five, twenty-eight, thirty,
but old and withered from drudgery, and child-bearing, and
coarse, unwholesome food. Ignorant women, and terribly
lonely, with the dumb, lack-luster eyes that bespeak
monotony. When they smiled they showed blue-white, glassily
perfect false teeth that flashed incongruously in the ruin
of their wrinkled, sallow, weather-beaten faces. Mrs.
Brandeis would question them gently.
Children? Ten. Living? Four. Doctor? Never had one in
the house. Why? He didn't believe in them. No proper
Fanny Herself |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Mrs. Warren's Profession by George Bernard Shaw: a handful of sovereigns and makes them chink]. Gold, Viv: gold!
VIVIE. Where did you get it?
FRANK. Gambling, Viv: gambling. Poker.
VIVIE. Pah! It's meaner than stealing it. No: I'm not coming.
[She sits down to work at the table, with her back to the glass
door, and begins turning over the papers].
FRANK [remonstrating piteously] But, my dear Viv, I want to talk
to you ever so seriously.
VIVIE. Very well: sit down in Honoria's chair and talk here. I
like ten minutes chat after tea. [He murmurs]. No use groaning:
I'm inexorable. [He takes the opposite seat disconsolately].
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela: what he did with the old man who came to complain
about the corn we'd taken away for horses? Well, the
old man took the paper and went to the barracks. 'Right
you are, brother, come in,' said Blondie, 'come in, come
in here; to give you back what's yours is only the right
thing to do. How many bushels did we steal? Ten? Sure
it wasn't more than ten? . . . That's right, about fifteen,
eh? Or was it twenty, perhaps? . . . Try and remember,
friend. . . . Of course you're a poor man, aren't you, and
you've a lot of kids to raise. . . . Yes, twenty it was. All
right, now! It's not ten or fifteen or twenty I'm going to
The Underdogs |
