| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Profits of Religion by Upton Sinclair: politics of hypocrisy. There is a "church vote" at which all
politicians tremble; there are clergymen, humanly jealous when
their peculiar graft is threatened, and hoping that if the law
enforces a general boredom, the public may be more disposed to
endure the boredom of sermons.
In New York City the theaters are closed on Sunday; but moving
pictures having come into being since the days of Puritan, rule,
the picture-shows are free to keep open. The law permits "sacred
concerts"--which, under the benevolent sway of Tammany, has come
to mean any sort of vaudeville; so what we have is a free rein to
the imbecilities of "Mutt & Jeff" and the obscenities of Anna
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from McTeague by Frank Norris: there the flat, dazzling surface of the desert broke and
raised into long low mounds, from the summit of which
McTeague could look for miles and miles over its horrible
desolation. No shade was in sight. Not a rock, not a stone
broke the monotony of the ground. Again and again he
ascended the low unevennesses, looking and searching for a
camping place, shading his eyes from the glitter of sand and
sky.
He tramped forward a little farther, then paused at length
in a hollow between two breaks, resolving to make camp
there.
McTeague |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister: of faces that he knew by name watched her; and through all the panorama
rang the pleasant laugh of Gaston. For a while in the evening the Padre
sat at his Erard playing Trovatore. Later, in his sleepless bed he lay,
saying now and then: "To die at home! Surely I may be granted at least
this." And he listened for the inner voices. But they were not speaking
any more, and the black hole of silence grew more dreadful to him than
their arguments. Then the dawn came in at his window, and he lay watching
its gray grow warm into color, until suddenly he sprang from his bed and
looked at the sea. Blue it lay, sapphire-hued and dancing with points of
gold, lovely and luring as a charm; and over its triangle the south-bound
ship was approaching. People were on board who in a few weeks would be
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