| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: countries, a stepmother to her children, but their own true mother; she
bore them and nourished them and received them, and in her bosom they now
repose. It is meet and right, therefore, that we should begin by praising
the land which is their mother, and that will be a way of praising their
noble birth.
The country is worthy to be praised, not only by us, but by all mankind;
first, and above all, as being dear to the Gods. This is proved by the
strife and contention of the Gods respecting her. And ought not the
country which the Gods praise to be praised by all mankind? The second
praise which may be fairly claimed by her, is that at the time when the
whole earth was sending forth and creating diverse animals, tame and wild,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: ubiquitous children sprawled and shouted and blew trumpets and
put tadpoles in the water-jugs, and the mid-day dinner was two
hours late-and proportionately bad--because the Italian cook
was posing for Fulmer.
Lansing's first thought had been that meeting Susy in such
circumstances would be the quickest way to cure them both of
their regrets. The case of the Fulmers was an awful object-
lesson in what happened to young people who lost their heads;
poor Nat, whose pictures nobody bought, had gone to seed so
terribly-and Grace, at twenty-nine, would never again be
anything but the woman of whom people say, "I can remember her
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Voice of the City by O. Henry: there was a late supper in a grillroom, with
champagne, and Kernan at the height of his com-
placency.
Half-past three in the morning found them in a
corner of an all-night cafe, Kernan still boasting in
a vapid and rambling way, Woods thinking moodily
over the end that had come to his usefulness as an
upholder of the law.
But, as he pondered, his eye brightened with a
speculative light.
"I wonder if it's possible," be said to himself, "I
The Voice of the City |
