| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Pivot of Civilization by Margaret Sanger: of thirty- eight years had undergone thirteen pregnancies in seventeen
years. Of eleven live births and two premature stillbirths, only two
children were alive at the time of the government agent's visit. The
second to eighth, the eleventh and the thirteenth had died of bowel
trouble, at ages ranging from three weeks to four months. The only
cause of these deaths the mother could give was that ``food did not
agree with them.'' She confessed quite frankly that she believed in
feeding babies, and gave them everything anybody told her to give
them. She began to give them at the age of one month, bread,
potatoes, egg, crackers, etc. For the last baby that died, this mother
had bought a goat and gave its milk to the baby; the goat got sick,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll: A smooth grassy slope, bounded, at the upper end, by venerable ruins
half buried in ivy, at the lower, by a stream seen through arching
trees--a dozen gaily-dressed people, seated in little groups here and
there--some open hampers--the debris of a picnic--such were the Facts
accumulated by the Scientific Researcher. And now, what deep,
far-reaching Theory was he to construct from them? The Researcher
found himself at fault. Yet stay! One Fact had escaped his notice.
While all the rest were grouped in twos and in threes, Arthur was
alone: while all tongues were talking, his was silent: while all faces
were gay, his was gloomy and despondent. Here was a Fact indeed!
The Researcher felt that a Theory must be constructed without delay.
Sylvie and Bruno |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: kindly, a skilful though reluctant physician, who regarded it as a
personal injury if any one in the party fell sick in summer time;
and a passionately unsuccessful hunter, who would sit all night in
the crotch of a tree beside an alleged deer-lick, and come home
perfectly satisfied if he had heard a hedgehog grunt. It was he
who called attention to the discrepancy between the boy's appetite
and his size by saying loudly at a picnic, "I wouldn't grudge you
what you eat, my boy, if I could only see that it did you any
good,"--which remark was not forgiven until the doctor redeemed his
reputation by pronouncing a serious medical opinion, before a
council of mothers, to the effect that it did not really hurt a boy
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