| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Heap O' Livin' by Edgar A. Guest: Life is a challenge to the bold,
It flings its gauntlet down
And bids us, if we seek for gold
And glory and renown,
To come and _take_ them from its store,
It will not meekly hand them o'er.
Life is a challenge all must meet,
And nobly must we dare;
Its gold is tawdry when we cheat,
Its fame a bitter snare
If it be stolen from life's clutch;
A Heap O' Livin' |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: "We went inside. The room looked like a Broadway stockbroker's--light
oak desks, two 'phones, Spanish leather upholstered chairs and
couches, oil paintings in gilt frames a foot deep and a ticker hitting
off the news in one corner.
"'Hello, hello!' says this funny farmer. 'Is that the Regent Theatre?
Yes; this is Plunkett, of Woodbine Centre. Reserve four orchestra
seats for Friday evening--my usual ones. Yes; Friday--good-bye.'
"'I run over to New York every two weeks to see a show,' says the
farmer, hanging up the receiver. 'I catch the eighteen-hour flyer at
Indianapolis, spend ten hours in the heyday of night on the Yappian
Way, and get home in time to see the chickens go to roost forty-eight
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane: puzzled over it.
When a child, playing and fighting with gamins in the street,
dirt disguised her. Attired in tatters and grime, she went unseen.
There came a time, however, when the young men of the vicinity
said: "Dat Johnson goil is a puty good looker." About this period
her brother remarked to her: "Mag, I'll tell yeh dis! See?
Yeh've edder got teh go teh hell or go teh work!" Whereupon she
went to work, having the feminine aversion of going to hell.
By a chance, she got a position in an establishment where they
made collars and cuffs. She received a stool and a machine in a
room where sat twenty girls of various shades of yellow discontent.
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets |
