| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: and started westward about the middle of April.
As I proposed to make notes, with a view to printing,
I took some thought as to methods of procedure.
I reflected that if I were recognized, on the river, I should
not be as free to go and come, talk, inquire, and spy around,
as I should be if unknown; I remembered that it was the custom
of steamboatmen in the old times to load up the confiding
stranger with the most picturesque and admirable lies, and put
the sophisticated friend off with dull and ineffectual facts:
so I concluded, that, from a business point of view, it would
be an advantage to disguise our party with fictitious names.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Vision Splendid by William MacLeod Raine: approval was the thing he most desired. His cousin had never seen
him so gay, so handsome, so altogether irresistible. For the first
time a little spasm of envy shot through Jeff, That the girl liked
James was plain enough. How could any girl help liking him?
The orator was so much the center of attention that Jeff postponed
his congratulations till evening. He called on his cousin after
midnight at his rooms. James had just returned from a class
banquet where he had been the toastmaster. He was still riding the
big wave.
"It's been a great day for me, Jeff," he broke out after his
cousin had congratulated him. "I've earned it, too. For seven
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: I did not notice it at first, but I see it now. Somehow he has
got his right arm on his left shoulder, and his left arm on his
right shoulder, and this shows us the back of his hands in both
instances. It makes him left-handed all around, which is a thing
which has never happened before, except perhaps in a museum.
That is the way with art, when it is not acquired but born to
you: you start in to make some simple little thing, not
suspecting that your genius is beginning to work and swell and
strain in secret, and all of a sudden there is a convulsion and
you fetch out something astonishing. This is called inspiration.
It is an accident; you never know when it is coming. I might
What is Man? |
