| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Iron Puddler by James J. Davis: the next come-on. The show was staged again for me the following
day, and that time they got me. I had the "brakeman's watch" and
he had the laugh on me. In the next wreck that Brakeman Joe got
into I wished him the same luck Comrade Bannerman wished for the
trainload of plutocrats. "If I should meet Joe now," I said, "I'd
gladly give him back the timepiece that he prizes so." Let us
hope that the brakeman I gave the watch to down in Alabama was
Brakeman Joe.
There was much to think of in that auction incident. Experience
will often give the lie to theory. My theory of the game was good
enough for me. I acted on my theory, and they got my money.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner: thrown across two poles forming a rough tent; and away to the left, a
little cut off from the rest of the camp by some low bushes, was the bell-
shaped tent of the captain, under a tall tree. Before the bell-shaped tent
stood a short stunted tree; its thick white stem gnarled and knotted; while
two stunted misshapen branches, like arms, stretched out on either side.
Before this tree, up and down, with his gun upon his arm, his head bent and
his eyes fixed on the ground, while the hot sun blazed on his shoulders,
walked a man.
Three or four fires were burning about the camp in different parts, three
cooking the mealies and rice which formed the diet of the men, their stock
of tinned meats having been exhausted; while the fourth, which was watched
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: lady covered an iron nature. The delightful siren who sounded at night
every bell of her amorous folly could soon make a young man forget the
hard and unfeeling Englishwoman, and it was only step by step that I
discovered the stony rock on which my seeds were wasted, bringing no
harvest. Madame de Mortsauf had penetrated that nature at a glance in
their brief encounter. I remembered her prophetic words. She was
right; Arabella's love became intolerable to me. I have since remarked
that most women who ride well on horseback have little tenderness.
Like the Amazons, they lack a breast; their hearts are hard in some
direction, but I do not know in which.
At the moment when I begin to feel the burden of the yoke, when
The Lily of the Valley |
