| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain: hopes to goodness we ain't gwine to see it no mo'.
Dey's BEEN a lake, en suthin's happened, en de lake's
dead, en we's seen its ghos'; we's seen it twiste, en
dat's proof. De desert's ha'nted, it's ha'nted, sho;
oh, Mars Tom, le''s git outen it; I'd ruther die den
have de night ketch us in it ag'in en de ghos' er dat
lake come a-mournin' aroun' us en we asleep en doan'
know de danger we's in."
"Ghost, you gander! It ain't anything but air and
heat and thirstiness pasted together by a person's
imagination. If I -- gimme the glass!"
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac: commerce. This shop had a front painted in 1820, which some bankrupt
had doubtless left in a dilapidated condition. The color had
disappeared beneath a double coating of dirt, the result of usage, and
a thick layer of dust; the window-panes were filthy, the door-knob
turned of itself, as door-knobs do in all places where people go out
more quickly than they enter.
"What do you say of THAT? First cousin to Death, isn't she?" said Leon
in Gazonal's ear, showing him, at the desk, a terrible individual.
"Well, she calls herself Madame Nourrisson."
"Madame, how much is this guipure?" asked the manufacturer, intending
to compete in liveliness with the two artists.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Love Songs by Sara Teasdale: "`Rivers to the Sea' is a book of sheer delight. . . . Her touch
turns everything to song." -- Edward J. Wheeler, in `Current Opinion'.
"Sara Teasdale's lyrics have the clarity, the precision,
the grace and fragrance of flowers." -- Harriet Monroe, in `Poetry'.
"Sara Teasdale has a genius for the song, for the perfect lyric,
in which the words seem to have fallen into place without art or effort."
-- Louis Untermeyer, in `The Chicago Evening Post'.
"`Rivers to the Sea' is the best book of pure lyrics
that has appeared in English since A. E. Housman's `A Shropshire Lad'."
-- William Marion Reedy, in `The Mirror'.
"`Rivers to the Sea' is the most beautiful book of pure lyrics
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