| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Patchwork Girl of Oz by L. Frank Baum: even the Emerald City can give one. I know that
lots of the city people would like to get back to
the land. The Scarecrow lives in the country, and
so do the Tin Woodman and Jack Pumpkinhead; yet
all three would be welcome to live in Ozma's
palace if they cared to. Too much splendor becomes
tiresome, you know. But, if we're to reach the
Emerald City before sundown, we must hurry, for it
is yet a long way off."
The entrancing sight of the city had put new
energy into them all and they hurried forward
The Patchwork Girl of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: wonderfully pellucid style have fitted him for the most delicate of
literary tasks. Hi has seen marvels, and he has told of them in a marvelous
way. There is scarcely an aspect of contemporary Japanese life, scarcely an
element in the social, political, and military questions involved in the
present conflict with Russia which is not made clear in one or another of
the books with which he has charmed American readers.
He characterizes Kwaidan as "stories and studies of strange things." A
hundred thoughts suggested by the book might be written down, but most of
them would begin and end with this fact of strangeness. To read the very
names in the table of contents is like listening to a Buddhist bell, struck
somewhere far away. Some of his tales are of the long ago, and yet they
Kwaidan |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy: shafts. 'Now we'll tie you up here and I'll put down some
straw and take off your bridle. When you've had a bite you'll
feel more cheerful.'
But Mukhorty was restless and evidently not comforted by
Nikita's remarks. He stepped now on one foot and now on
another, and pressed close against the sledge, turning his back
to the wind and rubbing his head on Nikita's sleeve. Then, as
if not to pain Nikita by refusing his offer of the straw he put
before him, he hurriedly snatched a wisp out of the sledge, but
immediately decided that it was now no time to think of straw
and threw it down, and the wind instantly scattered it, carried
Master and Man |
