| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll: Such solemnity, too! One could see he was wise,
The moment one looked in his face!
He had bought a large map representing the sea,
Without the least vestige of land:
And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be
A map they could all understand.
"What's the good of Mercator's North Poles and Equators,
Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?"
So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply
"They are merely conventional signs!
"Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!
The Hunting of the Snark |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Main Street by Sinclair Lewis: of Djeddah--an intricately chased jewel-box. A town in California
which had changed itself from the barren brick fronts
and slatternly frame sheds of a Main Street to a way which
led the eye down a vista of arcades and gardens.
Assured that she was not quite mad in her belief that a
small American town might be lovely, as well as useful in
buying wheat and selling plows, she sat brooding, her thin
fingers playing a tattoo on her cheeks. She saw in Gopher
Prairie a Georgian city hall: warm brick walls with white
shutters, a fanlight, a wide hall and curving stair. She saw it
the common home and inspiration not only of the town but
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Father Damien by Robert Louis Stevenson: which had alone introduced them to your knowledge. It is a
dangerous frame of mind. That you may understand how dangerous,
and into what a situation it has already brought you, we will (if
you please) go hand-in-hand through the different phrases of your
letter, and candidly examine each from the point of view of its
truth, its appositeness, and its charity.
Damien was COARSE.
It is very possible. You make us sorry for the lepers, who had
only a coarse old peasant for their friend and father. But you,
who were so refined, why were you not there, to cheer them with the
lights of culture? Or may I remind you that we have some reason to
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