| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Heart of the West by O. Henry: Wellington-nosed face, by his manner of nervous caution mingled with
determination, by his assumed promoter's or broker's air of busy
impatience, and by his bright-red necktie, gallantly redressing the
wrongs of his maltreated blue serge suit, like a battle standard still
waving above a lost cause. I found him profitable; and so may you.
When you do look for him, look among the light-horse troop of Bedouins
that besiege the picket-line of the travelling potentate's guards and
secretaries--among the wild-eyed genii of Arabian Afternoons that
gather to make astounding and egregrious demands upon the prince's
coffers.
I first saw Mr. Polk coming down the steps of the hotel at which
Heart of the West |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner: was as the oxen come every day and stand by the yokes; they do not know
why. Perhaps I would have been with him still; but one day we started with
loads for the Diamond Fields. The oxen were very thin now, and they had
been standing about in the yoke all day without food, while the wagons were
being loaded. Not far from the town was a hill. When we came to the foot
the first wagon stuck fast. I tried for a little while to urge the oxen,
but I soon saw the one span could never pull it up. I went to the other
wagon to loosen that span to join them on in front, but the transport-
rider, who was lying at the back of the wagon, jumped out.
"'They shall bring it up the hill; and if half of them die for it they
shall do it alone,' he said.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: eyes as a cat laps milk.
This is the story of their honeymoon--the tale will perhaps not be
lost on some artists.
Intellectual work, labor in the upper regions of mental effort, is one
of the grandest achievements of man. That which deserves real glory in
Art--for by Art we must understand every creation of the mind--is
courage above all things--a sort of courage of which the vulgar have
no conception, and which has never perhaps been described till now.
Driven by the dreadful stress of poverty, goaded by Lisbeth, and kept
by her in blinders, as a horse is, to hinder it from seeing to the
right and left of its road, lashed on by that hard woman, the
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