The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: now they had been working on a report of their investigations of synthetic
rubber.
At that moment in Zenith, there was a conference of four union officials as to
whether the twelve thousand coal-miners within a hundred miles of the city
should strike. Of these men one resembled a testy and prosperous grocer, one
a Yankee carpenter, one a soda-clerk, and one a Russian Jewish actor The
Russian Jew quoted Kautsky, Gene Debs, and Abraham Lincoln.
At that moment a G. A. R. veteran was dying. He had come from the Civil War
straight to a farm which, though it was officially within the city-limits of
Zenith, was primitive as the backwoods. He had never ridden in a motor car,
never seen a bath-tub, never read any book save the Bible, McGuffey's readers,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: puzzled her, she requested him to show her the house Victor lived in.
Bourais threw up his hands, sneezed, and then laughed uproariously;
such ignorance delighted his soul; but Felicite failed to understand
the cause of his mirth, she whose intelligence was so limited that she
perhaps expected to see even the picture of her nephew!
It was two weeks later that Liebard came into the kitchen at market-
time, and handed her a letter from her brother-in-law. As neither of
them could read, she called upon her mistress.
Madame Aubain, who was counting the stitches of her knitting, laid her
work down beside her, opened the letter, started, and in a low tone
and with a searching look said: "They tell you of a--misfortune. Your
 A Simple Soul |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Statesman by Plato: young and delicate; the white locks of the aged darkened again, and the
cheeks the bearded man became smooth, and recovered their former bloom; the
bodies of youths in their prime grew softer and smaller, continually by day
and night returning and becoming assimilated to the nature of a newly-born
child in mind as well as body; in the succeeding stage they wasted away and
wholly disappeared. And the bodies of those who died by violence at that
time quickly passed through the like changes, and in a few days were no
more seen.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Then how, Stranger, were the animals created in those
days; and in what way were they begotten of one another?
STRANGER: It is evident, Socrates, that there was no such thing in the
 Statesman |