| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Poor and Proud by Oliver Optic: Clearly those straps were sewed on by himself, and clearly those
cowhide shoes had been thus elaborately polished by no other
hands than his own. In a word, the appearance of his clothes,
coarse as was their texture, and unfashionable as was their cut,
indicated the most scrupulous care. It was plain that he had a
fondness for dress, which his circumstances did not permit him to
indulge to any very great extent.
Master Simon Sneed was a great man in his own estimation; and, as
he had read a great many exciting novels, and had a good command
of language, he talked and acted like a great man. He could hold
his own in conversation with older and wiser persons than
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu: You know how high my ideal of Art is; and to me my poor casual
little poems seem to be less than beautiful--I mean with that
final enduring beauty that I desire." And, in another letter,
she writes: "I am not a poet really. I have the vision and the
desire, but not the voice. If I could write just one poem full
of beauty and the spirit of greatness, I should be exultantly
silent for ever; but I sing just as the birds do, and my songs
are as ephemeral." It is for this bird-like quality of song, it
seems to me, that they are to be valued. They hint, in a sort of
delicately evasive way, at a rare temperament, the temperament of
a woman of the East, finding expression through a Western
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: and was full of uncertainties, and there were no judges nor great
solicitors among my relations. "Young chaps think they get on by
themselves," said my uncle. It isn't so. Not unless they take
their coats off. I took mine off before I was your age by nigh a
year."
We were at cross purposes from the outset, because I did not think
men lived to make money; and I was obtuse to the hints he was
throwing out at the possibilities of his own potbank, not willfully
obtuse, but just failing to penetrate his meaning. Whatever City
Merchants had or had not done for me, Flack, Topham and old Gates
had certainly barred my mistaking the profitable production and sale
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