| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: that of aristocracies, and both seek to establish their joint
sway over the human mind. Such epochs are transient, but very
brilliant: they are fertile without exuberance, and animated
without confusion. The French literature of the eighteenth
century may serve as an example.
I should say more than I mean if I were to assert that the
literature of a nation is always subordinate to its social
condition and its political constitution. I am aware that,
independently of these causes, there are several others which
confer certain characteristics on literary productions; but these
appear to me to be the chief. The relations which exist between
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Lost Princess of Oz by L. Frank Baum: fact, they all sparkled magnificently, and the pan was so big and
broad that it took a lot of diamonds to go around it three times.
Cayke stared so hard that her eyes seemed about to pop out of her
head. "O-o-o-h!" she exclaimed, drawing a deep breath of delight.
"Is this your dishpan?" inquired the King.
"It is, it is!" cried the Cookie Cook, and rushing forward, she fell
on her knees and threw her arms around the precious pan. But her arms
came together without meeting any resistance at all. Cayke tried to
seize the edge, but found nothing to grasp. The pan was surely there,
she thought, for she could see it plainly; but it was not solid; she
could not feel it at all. With a moan of astonishment and despair,
The Lost Princess of Oz |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot: There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying 'Stetson!
'You who were with me in the ships at Mylae! 70
'That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
'Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
'Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
Line 42 Od'] Oed' -- Editor.
'Oh keep the Dog far hence, that's friend to men,
'Or with his nails he'll dig it up again!
'You! hypocrite lecteur! -- mon semblable, -- mon frère!'
II. A GAME OF CHESS
THE Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,
The Waste Land |
