| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: the bank several hundred dollars more than he needed, nor why he kissed Tinka
so tenderly, and cried, "God bless you, baby!" From the train he waved to her
till she was but a scarlet spot beside the brown bulkier presence of Mrs.
Babbitt, at the end of a steel and cement aisle ending in vast barred gates.
With melancholy he looked back at the last suburb of Zenith.
All the way north he pictured the Maine guides: simple and strong and daring,
jolly as they played stud-poker in their unceiled shack, wise in woodcraft as
they tramped the forest and shot the rapids. He particularly remembered Joe
Paradise, half Yankee, half Indian. If he could but take up a backwoods claim
with a man like Joe, work hard with his hands, be free and noisy in a flannel
shirt, and never come back to this dull decency!
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle: Then all shouted "Ay" with a mighty voice.
"I thank you all deeply," said the Knight earnestly, "but think it
not ill of me if I cannot take it. Gladly have I borrowed it from you,
but it may not be that I can take it as a gift."
Then Robin Hood said no more but gave the money to Little John to put away
in the treasury, for he had shrewdness enough to know that nought breeds
ill will and heart bitterness like gifts forced upon one that cannot choose
but take them.
Then Sir Richard had the packs laid upon the ground and opened,
whereupon a great shout went up that made the forest ring again, for lo,
there were tenscore bows of finest Spanish yew, all burnished till
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tales of the Klondyke by Jack London: that she despised the breed?
"But you see, I--I'm engaged. Of course you know that. And the
girl's coming into the country to marry me. Don't know what was
up with me when I asked her, but it was a long while back, and I
was all-fired young--"
"I want to go away, out of the land, anywhere," she went on,
disregarding the obstacle he had reared up and apologized for. "I
have been running over the men I know and reached the conclusion
that--that--"
"I was the likeliest of the lot?"
She smiled her gratitude for his having saved her the
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