| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: then, only earthly tradition makes a grand show pretty necessary on
that kind of an occasion."
"Do they an turn out, Sandy?"
"Who? - all the patriarchs? Oh, no - hardly ever more than a
couple. You will be here fifty thousand years - maybe more -
before you get a glimpse of all the patriarchs and prophets. Since
I have been here, Job has been to the front once, and once Ham and
Jeremiah both at the same time. But the finest thing that has
happened in my day was a year or so ago; that was Charles Peace's
reception - him they called 'the Bannercross Murderer' - an
Englishman. There were four patriarchs and two prophets on the
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Damaged Goods by Upton Sinclair: tiny--the little one--she's a bit feeble; but Lord save us, she's
a city child! And she's getting along all right, I tell you."
"No," persisted Madame Dupont, "I tell you--she has got a cold in
her head, and she has an eruption at the back of the throat."
"Well," cried the nurse, angrily, "if she has, it's because the
doctor scratched her with that spoon he put into her mouth wrong
end first! A cold in the head? Yes, that's true; but if she has
caught cold, I can't say when, I don't know anything about it--
nothing, nothing at all. I have always kept her well covered;
she's always had as much as three covers on her. The truth is,
it was when you came, the time before last; you were all the time
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: Firmiani gives me more than happiness; she has inspired me with a
delicacy of feeling I think I lacked. So I call her MY DEAR
CONSCIENCE,--a love-word which expresses certain secret harmonies
within our hearts. I find honesty profitable; I shall get rich in time
by myself. I've an industrial scheme in my head, and if it succeeds I
shall earn millions."
"Ah! my boy, you have your mother's soul," said the old man, his eyes
filling at the thought of his sister.
Just then, in spite of the distance between Octave's garret and the
street, the young man heard the sound of a carriage.
"There she is!" he cried; "I know her horses by the way they are
|
