| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Main Street by Sinclair Lewis: great moment for me!"
IV
They had all the experiences of provincials in a metropolis.
After breakfast Carol bustled to a hair-dresser's, bought gloves
and a blouse, and importantly met Kennicott in front of an
optician's, in accordance with plans laid down, revised, and
verified. They admired the diamonds and furs and frosty
silverware and mahogany chairs and polished morocco sewing-
boxes in shop-windows, and were abashed by the throngs in the
department-stores, and were bullied by a clerk into buying too
many shirts for Kennicott, and gaped at the "clever novelty
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Time Machine by H. G. Wells: blown in.
I felt an unreasonable amazement. I knew that something
strange had happened, and for the moment could not distinguish
what the strange thing might be. As I stood staring, the door
into the garden opened, and the man-servant appeared.
We looked at each other. Then ideas began to come. `Has Mr.
---- gone out that way?' said I.
`No, sir. No one has come out this way. I was expecting to
find him here.'
At that I understood. At the risk of disappointing Richardson
I stayed on, waiting for the Time Traveller; waiting for the
The Time Machine |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: perhaps if we made the play-houses for them pretty and pleasant
enough, or gave them their pensions at home, and allowed them a
little introductory peculation with the public money, their minds
might be reconciled to the conditions. Meantime, here are the
facts: we make our relief either so insulting to them, or so
painful, that they rather die than take it at our hands; or, for
third alternative, we leave them so untaught and foolish that they
starve like brute creatures, wild and dumb, not knowing what to do,
or what to ask. I say, you despise compassion; if you did not, such
a newspaper paragraph would be as impossible in a Christian country
as a deliberate assassination permitted in its public streets. {21}
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