| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: He had come to thank us for the presents, and for all grandmother's
kindness to his family. Jake and Otto joined us from the basement and we
sat about the stove, enjoying the deepening grey of the winter afternoon
and the atmosphere of comfort and security in my grandfather's house.
This feeling seemed completely to take possession of Mr. Shimerda.
I suppose, in the crowded clutter of their cave, the old man had
come to believe that peace and order had vanished from the earth,
or existed only in the old world he had left so far behind.
He sat still and passive, his head resting against the back
of the wooden rocking-chair, his hands relaxed upon the arms.
His face had a look of weariness and pleasure, like that of sick
My Antonia |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson: repugnance addressed himself to loose the straps and open the lock
of the Saratoga trunk. The Prince stood by, watching with a
composed countenance and his hands behind his back. The body was
quite stiff, and it cost Silas a great effort, both moral and
physical, to dislodge it from its position, and discover the face.
Prince Florizel started back with an exclamation of painful
surprise.
"Alas!" he cried, "you little know, Mr. Scuddamore, what a cruel
gift you have brought me. This is a young man of my own suite, the
brother of my trusted friend; and it was upon matters of my own
service that he has thus perished at the hands of violent and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Crowd by Gustave le Bon: except myths.
3. THE EXAGGERATION AND INGENUOUSNESS OF THE SENTIMENTS OF CROWDS.
Whether the feelings exhibited by a crowd be good or bad, they
present the double character of being very simple and very
exaggerated. On this point, as on so many others, an individual
in a crowd resembles primitive beings. Inaccessible to fine
distinctions, he sees things as a whole, and is blind to their
intermediate phases. The exaggeration of the sentiments of a
crowd is heightened by the fact that any feeling when once it is
exhibited communicating itself very quickly by a process of
suggestion and contagion, the evident approbation of which it is
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