| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Mother by Owen Wister: "But I do want to know. Richard has had such interesting experiences, so
many of them. And I do so want him to tell a thoroughly nice one. There's
the one when he saved a man from drowning just below our house, the
second summer, and the man turned out to be a burglar and broke into the
pantry that very night, and Richard caught him in the dark with just as
much courage as he had caught him in the water and just as few clothes,
only it was so different. Richard makes it quite thrilling. And I
mentioned another to him. But he just went on shaving. And now he has gone
out walking, and I believe it's going to be something I would rather not
hear. But I mean to hear it."
At lunch Mrs. Field made a better meal, although it was clear to Mrs.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde: that nothing should surprise us nowadays, except happy marriages.
They apparently are getting remarkably rare.
MRS. ALLONBY. Oh, they're quite out of date.
LADY STUTFIELD. Except amongst the middle classes, I have been
told.
MRS. ALLONBY. How like the middle classes!
LADY STUTFIELD. Yes - is it not? - very, very like them.
LADY CAROLINE. If what you tell us about the middle classes is
true, Lady Stutfield, it redounds greatly to their credit. It is
much to be regretted that in our rank of life the wife should be so
persistently frivolous, under the impression apparently that it is
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair: some places they would use the same room for eating and sleeping,
and at night the men would put their cots upon the tables, to
keep away from the swarms of rats.
But with all their best efforts, the packers were demoralized.
Ninety per cent of the men had walked out; and they faced the
task of completely remaking their labor force--and with the price
of meat up thirty per cent, and the public clamoring for a
settlement. They made an offer to submit the whole question at
issue to arbitration; and at the end of ten days the unions
accepted it, and the strike was called off. It was agreed that
all the men were to be re-employed within forty-five days, and
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