| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from One Basket by Edna Ferber: everybody feels there should be a hat like that at a spring
opening. It's like a fruit centerpiece at a family dinner.
Nobody ever eats it, but it has to be there."
The two Baldwin children--Adele and Eugene--found Aunt Sophy's
shop a treasure trove. Adele, during her doll days, possessed
such boxes of satin and velvet scraps, and bits of lace and
ribbon and jet as to make her the envy of all her playmates. She
used to crawl about the floor of the shop workroom and under the
table and chairs like a little scavenger.
"What in the world do you do with all that truck, child?" asked
Aunt Sophy. "You must have barrels of it."
One Basket |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Herland by Charlotte Gilman: their questions were hard to answer. But I am sorry to say, when we were
at last brought out and--exhibited (I hate to call it that, but that's what
it was), there was no rush of takers. Here was poor old Terry fondly imagining
that at last he was free to stray in "a rosebud garden of girls"--and behold!
the rosebuds were all with keen appraising eye, studying us.
They were interested, profoundly interested, but it was not
the kind of interest we were looking for.
To get an idea of their attitude you have to hold in mind their
extremely high sense of solidarity. They were not each choosing
a lover; they hadn't the faintest idea of love--sex-love, that is.
These girls--to each of whom motherhood was a lodestar, and
Herland |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: are not unconscious of the manifold advantages of our new
state. What we lose in generous impulse, we more than gain in
the habit of generously watching others; and the capacity to
enjoy Shakespeare may balance a lost aptitude for playing at
soldiers. Terror is gone out of our lives, moreover; we no
longer see the devil in the bed-curtains nor lie awake to
listen to the wind. We go to school no more; and if we have
only exchanged one drudgery for another (which is by no means
sure), we are set free for ever from the daily fear of
chastisement. And yet a great change has overtaken us; and
although we do not enjoy ourselves less, at least we take our
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