| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber: wonder if the time will ever come when I'll look resigned to a
hotel dinner, after four months of 'em. Why, girl, I've got so I
just eat the things that are covered up--like baked potatoes in the
shell, and soft boiled eggs, and baked apples, and oranges that I
can peel, and nuts."
"Why, you poor kid," breathed Pearlie, her pale eyes fixed on
him in motherly pity. "You oughtn't to do that. You'll get so
thin your girl won't know you."
Sam looked up quickly. "How in thunderation did you
know----?"
Pearlie was pinning on her hat, and she spoke succinctly, her
Buttered Side Down |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: passion for adventurous exploit, had she not unfolded to him the
real loveliness of beneficence and made the doing good the end and aim
of his soaring ambition.
I feel exquisite pleasure in dwelling on the recollections of childhood,
before misfortune had tainted my mind and changed its bright visions of
extensive usefulness into gloomy and narrow reflections upon self.
Besides, in drawing the picture of my early days, I also record
those events which led, by insensible steps, to my after tale of misery,
for when I would account to myself for the birth of that passion which
afterwards ruled my destiny I find it arise, like a mountain river,
from ignoble and almost forgotten sources; but, swelling as it proceeded,
Frankenstein |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Fantastic Fables by Ambrose Bierce: mothers. You and I are not entirely alike ourselves."
A Racial Parallel
SOME White Christians engaged in driving Chinese Heathens out of an
American town found a newspaper published in Peking in the Chinese
tongue, and compelled one of their victims to translate an
editorial. It turned out to be an appeal to the people of the
Province of Pang Ki to drive the foreign devils out of the country
and burn their dwellings and churches. At this evidence of
Mongolian barbarity the White Christians were so greatly incensed
that they carried out their original design.
The Honest Cadi
Fantastic Fables |
