| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Roads of Destiny by O. Henry: worked for what you got. You wore your finger nails down skinning
suckers, and salting mines, and driving bears and alligators off your
town lot additions. How much does patriotism count for on deposit with
the little man with the green eye-shade in the savings-bank adds up
your book? Suppose you were to get pinched over here in this
irreligious country for some little crime or other, and appealed to
your country for protection--what would it do for you? Turn your
appeal over to a committee of one railroad man, an army officer, a
member of each labour union, and a coloured man to investigate whether
any of your ancestors were ever related to a cousin of Mark Hanna, and
then file the papers in the Smithsonian Institution until after the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart: American child. She was not sure of anything, except that the
household looked most irregular, and that Peter Byrne was trying
to cover a difficult situation with much conversation. He was
almost glib, was Peter. The tea was good; that was one thing.
She sat back with her muff on her knee, having refused the
concession of putting it on a chair as savoring too much of
acceptance if not approval, and sipped her tea out of a spoon as
becomes a tea-lover. Peter, who loathed tea, lounged about the
room, clearly in the way, but fearful to leave Harmony alone with
her. She was quite likely, at the first opportunity, to read her
a lesson on the conventions, if nothing worse; to upset the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Don Quixote by Miquel de Cervantes: joke and was very sharp-witted, said to him, "Sir Knight, we do not
know who this good lady is that you speak of; show her to us, for,
if she be of such beauty as you suggest, with all our hearts and
without any pressure we will confess the truth that is on your part
required of us."
"If I were to show her to you," replied Don Quixote, "what merit
would you have in confessing a truth so manifest? The essential
point is that without seeing her you must believe, confess, affirm,
swear, and defend it; else ye have to do with me in battle,
ill-conditioned, arrogant rabble that ye are; and come ye on, one by
one as the order of knighthood requires, or all together as is the
Don Quixote |
