| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: atmospheric gradations are carefully observed, and yet in spite of
your conscientious labor I cannot believe that this beautiful body has
the warm breath of life. If I put my hand on that firm, round throat I
shall find it cold as marble. No, no, my friend, blood does not run
beneath that ivory skin; the purple tide of life does not swell those
veins, nor stir those fibres which interlace like net-work below the
translucent amber of the brow and breast. This part palpitates with
life, but that other part is not living; life and death jostle each
other in every detail. Here, you have a woman; there, a statue; here
again, a dead body. Your creation is incomplete. You have breathed
only a part of your soul into the well-beloved work. The torch of
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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: seas and plains were being lined with traffic, school, mill and
office hummed with life. He wondered why men were so busy and what
they were trying to do.
He went to a railroad director and asked: "Why are you building
railroads?" "For profits," was the answer. But a laborer beckoned
him aside and whispered: "No--we are making the _World_ one
neighborhood. East is now next door to West, and all peoples dwell
in one continuing city."
The young man went to the boss of a labor union. "Why," he asked,
"do you spend your days breeding discontent and leading strikes?"
"Why?" repeated the leader fiercely, "that the workers receive
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Hermione's Little Group of Serious Thinkers by Don Marquis: Were there to worship at those feet . . . to vi-
brate and change color with the moods of
those unusual feet. . . .
"This toe," she said, "is Beauty . . . this is Art . . .
This toe is Italy, and this is Greece." . . .
A poet, quite beside himself with inspiration,
Suddenly arose and cried:
"This little pig went to market,
This little pig stayed home
This little pig was Greece,
This little pig was Rome!"
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