| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Poems by T. S. Eliot: Laodiceans.
The broad-backed hippopotamus
Rests on his belly in the mud;
Although he seems so firm to us
He is merely flesh and blood.
Flesh-and-blood is weak and frail,
Susceptible to nervous shock;
While the True Church can never fail
For it is based upon a rock.
The hippo's feeble steps may err
In compassing material ends,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: starts his complex off, and out comes every fact it has seized that
matches his school-implanted prejudice, just as it has rejected every fact
that does not match it. There is absolutely no other way to explain the
American habit of speaking ill of England and well of France. Several
times in the past, France has been flagrantly hostile to us. But there was
Lafayette, there was Rochambeau, and the great service France did us then
against England. Hence from our school histories we have a pro-French
complex. Under its workings we automatically remember every good turn
France has done us and automatically forget the evil turns. Again try the
experiment yourself. How many Americans do you think that you will find
who can recall, or who even know when you recall to them the insolent
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Damaged Goods by Upton Sinclair: modern high-priest of truth. Around him writhe the victims of
ignorance and the criminals of conventional cruelty. Kind,
stern, high-minded, clear-headed, yet human-hearted, he towers
over all, as the master.
This is as it should be. The man to say the word to save the
world of ignorant wretches, cursed by the clouds and darkness a
mistaken modesty has thrown around a life-and-death instinct, is
the physician.
The only question is this: Is this play decent? My answer is
that it is the decentest play that has been in New York for a
year. It is so decent that it is religious.
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