| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Herland by Charlotte Gilman: and years of trouble for us.'
"Everybody congratulated me. The children all over the
country were told to watch for that moth, if there were any more.
I was shown the history of the creature, and an account of the
damage it used to do and of how long and hard our foremothers
had worked to save that tree for us. I grew a foot, it seemed to
me, and determined then and there to be a forester."
This is but an instance; she showed me many. The big
difference was that whereas our children grow up in private homes
and families, with every effort made to protect and seclude them
from a dangerous world, here they grew up in a wide, friendly
Herland |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: it softly, and it answered softly, kindly. He shivered and stood still.
Then he began to feel it all over, ran his finger-tips along the
slippery sides, embraced the carved legs, tried to get some conception
of its shape and size, of the space it occupied in primeval night.
It was cold and hard, and like nothing else in his black universe.
He went back to its mouth, began at one end of the keyboard and felt his way
down into the mellow thunder, as far as he could go. He seemed to know
that it must be done with the fingers, not with the fists or the feet.
He approached this highly artificial instrument through a mere instinct,
and coupled himself to it, as if he knew it was to piece him out and make
a whole creature of him. After he had tried over all the sounds,
My Antonia |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: the hereditary place before the mast, confronting the salt spray
and the gale which had blustered against his sire and grandsire.
The boy, also in due time, passed from the forecastle to the
cabin, spent a tempestuous manhood, and returned from his
world-wanderings, to grow old, and die, and mingle his dust with
the natal earth. This long connexion of a
THE CUSTOM-HOUSE 17
The Scarlet Letter |
