| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Voice of the City by O. Henry: of his handiwork? Katy did not know that the
proudest consummation of a New Yorker's ambition
is to shake bands with a spaghetti chef or to receive
a nod from a Broadway head-waiter.
At last the company thinned, leaving' but a few
couples and quartettes lingering over new wine and
old stories. And then came Mr. Brunelli to Katy's
secluded table, and drew a chair close to hers.
Katy smiled at him dreamily. She was eating the
last spoonful of a raspberry roll with Burgundy
sauce.
The Voice of the City |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling: Must he have his Law as a quid to chaw, or laid in brass on his wheel?
Does he steal with tears when he buccaneers?
'Fore Gad, then, why does he steal?"
The skipper bit on a deep-sea word, and the word it was not sweet,
For he could see the Captains Three had signalled to the Fleet.
But three and two, in white and blue, the whimpering flags began: --
"We have heard a tale of a -- foreign sail, but he is a merchantman."
The skipper peered beneath his palm and swore by the Great Horn Spoon: --
"'Fore Gad, the Chaplain of the Fleet would bless my picaroon!"
By two and three the flags blew free to lash the laughing air: --
"We have sold our spars to the merchantman -- we know that his price is fair."
Verses 1889-1896 |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Human Drift by Jack London: sword in hand, killing and being killed, she has carved out for
herself Formosa and Korea, and driven the vanguard of her drift
far into the rich interior of Manchuria.
For an immense period of time China's population has remained at
400,000,000--the saturation point. The only reason that the
Yellow River periodically drowns millions of Chinese is that there
is no other land for those millions to farm. And after every such
catastrophe the wave of human life rolls up and now millions flood
out upon that precarious territory. They are driven to it,
because they are pressed remorselessly against subsistence. It is
inevitable that China, sooner or later, like Japan, will learn and
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