| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: least inkling of what the great prophets vainly tried to make the
world understand, will have anything to do with it except for purely
secular reasons.
Imagination
Before we can clearly understand how baleful is this condition of
intimidation in which we live, it is necessary to clear up the
confusion made by our use of the word imagination to denote two very
different powers of mind. One is the power to imagine things as they
are not: this I call the romantic imagination. The other is the
power to imagine things as they are without actually sensing them; and
this I will call the realistic imagination. Take for example marriage
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: blood-stains on my pillow and a hidden dagger. Into the bargain,
in my possession had been found a traveling-bag containing the
dead man's pocket-book.
In my favor was McKnight's theory against Mrs. Conway. She had a
motive for wishing to secure the notes, she believed I was in lower
ten, and she had collapsed at the discovery of the crime in the
morning.
Against both of these theories, I accuse a purely chimerical person
named Sullivan, who was not seen by any of the survivors - save one,
Alison, whom I could not bring into the case. I could find a motive
for his murdering his father-in-law, whom he hated, but again - I
The Man in Lower Ten |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: desirous, as most people are, of kicking away the ladder that
had perhaps helped him to reach his present elevation. My young
friend was willing, in short, that the fresh verdure of his
growing reputation should spread over my straggling and
half-naked boughs; even as I have sometimes thought of training
a vine, with its broad leafiness, and purple fruitage, over the
worm-eaten posts and rafters of the rustic summer house. I was
not insensible to the advantages of his proposal, and gladly
assured him of my acceptance.
Merely from the title of the stories I saw at once that the
subjects were not less rich than those of the former volume;
Tanglewood Tales |
