| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: Study; plain geometry, Cicero, and the agonizing metaphors of Comus.
"I don't see why they give us this old-fashioned junk by Milton and
Shakespeare and Wordsworth and all these has-beens," he protested. "Oh, I
guess I could stand it to see a show by Shakespeare, if they had swell scenery
and put on a lot of dog, but to sit down in cold blood and READ 'em--These
teachers--how do they get that way?"
Mrs. Babbitt, darning socks, speculated, "Yes, I wonder why. Of course I don't
want to fly in the face of the professors and everybody, but I do think
there's things in Shakespeare--not that I read him much, but when I was young
the girls used to show me passages that weren't, really, they weren't at all
nice."
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte: dreadful expressions in describing it: she must have learned it
from the grooms. It nearly puts me into fits when she begins.'
'I learned it from papa, you ass! and his jolly friends,' said the
young lady, vigorously cracking a hunting-whip, which she
habitually carried in her hand. 'I'm as good judge of horseflesh
as the best of 'm.'
'Well, now get along, you shocking girl! I really shall take a fit
if you go on in such a way. And now, Miss Grey, attend to me; I'm
going to tell you about the ball. You must be dying to hear about
it, I know. Oh, SUCH a ball! You never saw or heard, or read, or
dreamt of anything like it in all your life. The decorations, the
Agnes Grey |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: speculations for the interval, and one of them was deeply
absorbing. Corvick had kept his information from his young friend
till after the removal of the last barrier to their intimacy - then
only had he let the cat out of the bag. Was it Gwendolen's idea,
taking a hint from him, to liberate this animal only on the basis
of the renewal of such a relation? Was the figure in the carpet
traceable or describable only for husbands and wives - for lovers
supremely united? It came back to me in a mystifying manner that
in Kensington Square, when I mentioned that Corvick would have told
the girl he loved, some word had dropped from Vereker that gave
colour to this possibility. There might be little in it, but there
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