| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Horse's Tale by Mark Twain: or in White Cloud's camp or Thunder-Bird's, he can tell you; and if
you make friends with him he'll be glad to, for he is a born
gossip, and picks up all the tittle-tattle. Being the whole
Seventh Cavalry's reptile, he doesn't belong to anybody in
particular, and hasn't any military duties; so he comes and goes as
he pleases, and is popular with all the house cats and other
authentic sources of private information. He understands all the
languages, and talks them all, too. With an accent like gritting
your teeth, it is true, and with a grammar that is no improvement
on blasphemy - still, with practice you get at the meat of what he
says, and it serves. . . Hark! That's the reveille. . . .
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Extracts From Adam's Diary by Mark Twain: on growing--that is a curious circumstance, for bears get their
growth earlier than this. Bears are dangerous--since our
catastrophe--and I shall not be satisfied to have this one prowling
about the place much longer without a muzzle on. I have offered
to get her a kangaroo if she would let this one go, but it did no
good--she is determined to run us into all sorts of foolish risks,
I think. She was not like this before she lost her mind.
A Fortnight Later
I examined its mouth. There is no danger yet; it has only one
tooth. It has no tail yet. It makes more noise now than it ever
did before--and mainly at night. I have moved out. But I shall
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: The greenhouse is only used as a refuge, and kept at a temperature
just above freezing, and is reserved entirely for such plants
as cannot stand the very coldest part of the winter out of doors.
I don't use it for growing anything, because I don't love things
that will only bear the garden for three or four months in the year
and require <107> coaxing and petting for the rest of it.
Give me a garden full of strong, healthy creatures, able to stand
roughness and cold without dismally giving in and dying.
I never could see that delicacy of constitution is pretty,
either in plants or women. No doubt there are many lovely
flowers to be had by heat and constant coaxing, but then
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
