| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Octopus by Frank Norris: compromise with conscience, the remorse of a bad deed done in a
moment of excitement. Ah, the humiliation of detection, the
degradation of being caught, caught like a schoolboy pilfering
his fellows' desks, and, worse than all, worse than all, the
consciousness of lost self-respect, the knowledge of a prestige
vanishing, a dignity impaired, knowledge that the grip which held
a multitude in check was trembling, that control was wavering,
that command was being weakened. Then the little tricks to
deceive the crowd, the little subterfuges, the little pretences
that kept up appearances, the lies, the bluster, the pose, the
strut, the gasconade, where once was iron authority; the turning
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Herland by Charlotte Gilman: consumer--not the pride of the producer," I suggested.
"It's both," said Somel. "We have pride enough in our work."
"Then why not in your children?" urged Jeff.
"But we have! We're magnificently proud of them," she insisted.
"Then why not sign 'em?" said Terry triumphantly.
Moadine turned to him with her slightly quizzical smile.
"Because the finished product is not a private one. When they are
babies, we do speak of them, at times, as `Essa's Lato,' or `Novine's
Amel'; but that is merely descriptive and conversational. In the records,
of course, the child stands in her own line of mothers; but in dealing
with it personally it is Lato, or Amel, without dragging in its ancestors."
Herland |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Prufrock/Other Observations by T. S. Eliot: Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
* * * *
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet--and here’s no great matter;
Prufrock/Other Observations |
