| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Nada the Lily by H. Rider Haggard: were brave. Now they are all dead, and their women and children with
them,--that people is no more. It is gone like last month's moon; how
it went I will tell you by-and-bye.
Our tribe lived in a beautiful open country; the Boers, whom we call
the Amaboona, are there now, they tell me. My father, Makedama, was
chief of the tribe, and his kraal was built on the crest of a hill,
but I was not the son of his head wife. One evening, when I was still
little, standing as high as a man's elbow only, I went out with my
mother below the cattle kraal to see the cows driven in. My mother was
very fond of these cows, and there was one with a white face that
would follow her about. She carried my little sister Baleka riding on
Nada the Lily |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The House of Dust by Conrad Aiken: A sparrow whirs to the eaves, and shakes his wings.
What's death--what's death? The spring returns like music,
The trees are like dark lovers who dream in starlight,
The soft grey clouds go over the stars like dreams.
The cool stone wounds her arms to pain, to pleasure.
Under the lamp a circle of wet street gleams. . . .
And death seems far away, a thing of roses,
A golden portal, where golden music closes,
Death seems far away:
And spring returns, the countless singing of lovers,
And spring returns to stay. . . .
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: in use twenty years ago (and hence responsible for the opinion of
Americans now between thirty and forty years old) and books in use
to-day, and hence responsible for the opinion of those American men and
women who will presently be grown up and will prolong for another
generation the school-taught ignorance and prejudice of their fathers and
mothers. I select from Mr. Altschul's catalogue only those books in use
in 1917, when he published his volume, and of these only group five,
where the facts about English sympathy with us are totally suppressed.
Barnes' School History of the United States, by Steele. Chandler and
Chitword's Makers of American History. Chambers' (Hansell's) A School
History of the United States. Eggleston's A First Book in American
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