| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: excuse, and a pretence of reluctance. It must be for the child's
good. The assailant must say "This hurts me more than it hurts you."
There must be hypocrisy as well as cruelty. The injury to the child
would be far less if the voluptuary said frankly "I beat you because I
like beating you; and I shall do it whenever I can contrive an excuse
for it." But to represent this detestable lust to the child as Divine
wrath, and the cruelty as the beneficent act of God, which is exactly
what all our floggers do, is to add to the torture of the body, out of
which the flogger at least gets some pleasure, the maiming and
blinding of the child's soul, which can bring nothing but horror to
anyone.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: 'Optima dies ... prima fugit.'
III
IN LINCOLN THE BEST part of the theatrical season came late,
when the good companies stopped off there for one-night stands,
after their long runs in New York and Chicago. That spring
Lena went with me to see Joseph Jefferson in `Rip Van Winkle,'
and to a war play called `Shenandoah.' She was inflexible
about paying for her own seat; said she was in business now,
and she wouldn't have a schoolboy spending his money on her.
I liked to watch a play with Lena; everything was wonderful to her,
and everything was true. It was like going to revival meetings
My Antonia |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Where There's A Will by Mary Roberts Rinehart: that, Minnie, where those tights are, my letters are!"
I glanced at the pantry, where her letters were hidden on the
upper shelf. The door was closed.
"But--but what would she want with the letters?" I asked, with my
teeth fairly hitting together. Miss Cobb pushed her forefinger
into my shoulder.
"To blackmail me," she said, in a tragic voice, "or perhaps to
publish. I've often thought of that myself--they're so
beautiful. Letters from a life insurance agent to his lady-
love--interesting, you know, and alliterative. As for that
woman--!"
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