| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from One Basket by Edna Ferber: In order to understand the Tessie of today one would have to know
the Tessie of six months ago--Tessie the impudent, the
life-loving. Tessie Golden could say things to the
escapement-room foreman that anyone else would have been fired
for. Her wide mouth was capable of glorious insolences.
Whenever you heard shrieks of laughter from the girls' washroom
at noon you knew that Tessie was holding forth to an admiring
group. She was a born mimic; audacious, agile, and with the gift
of burlesque. The autumn that Angie Hatton came home from Europe
wearing the first tight skirt that Chippewa had ever seen, Tessie
gave an imitation of that advanced young woman's progress down
One Basket |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Herodias by Gustave Flaubert: silent admiration.
They were indeed wonderful animals; supple as serpents, light as
birds. They were trained to gallop rapidly, following the arrow of the
rider, and dash into the midst of a group of the enemy, overturning
men and biting them savagely as they fell. They were sure-footed among
rocky passes, and would jump fearlessly over yawning chasms; and,
while ready to gallop across the plains a whole day without tiring,
they would stop instantly at the command of the rider.
As soon as Jacim entered their quarters, they trotted up to him, as
sheep crowd around the shepherd; and, thrusting forward their sleek
necks, they looked at him with a gaze like that of inquiring children.
Herodias |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Symposium by Xenophon: bankrupt.[30] In old days I would be asked to dinner to amuse the
company with jests.[31] Now all is changed, and who will be at pains
to ask me out to dinner any more? I might as well pretend to be
immortal as to be serious. Nor will any one invite me in hopes of
reclining at my board in his turn. Everyone knows so serious a thing
as dinner in my house was never heard of; it's against the rules--the
more's the pity.
[30] Cf. "Cyrop." VI. i. 3; Plat. "Laws," 677 C.
[31] Lit. "by the laughter which I stirred in them."
And as he spoke he blew his nose and snuffled, uttering the while so
truly dolorous a moan[32] that everybody fell to soothing him. "They
The Symposium |
