| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: The road leading to the mills had been quarried from the solid
rock, which rose abrupt and bare on one side of the cinder-
covered road, while the river, sluggish and black, crept past on
the other. The mills for rolling iron are simply immense tent-
like roofs, covering acres of ground, open on every side.
Beneath these roofs Deborah looked in on a city of fires, that
burned hot and fiercely in the night. Fire in every horrible
form: pits of flame waving in the wind; liquid metal-flames
writhing in tortuous streams through the sand; wide caldrons
filled with boiling fire, over which bent ghastly wretches
stirring the strange brewing; and through all, crowds of half-
Life in the Iron-Mills |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane: ways of society. Let the unfortunates rail; the
others may play marbles.
He did not give a great deal of thought to
these battles that lay directly before him. It was
not essential that he should plan his ways in
regard to them. He had been taught that many
obligations of a life were easily avoided. The
lessons of yesterday had been that retribution
was a laggard and blind. With these facts before
him he did not deem it necessary that he should
become feverish over the possibilities of the
The Red Badge of Courage |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Pivot of Civilization by Margaret Sanger: with trouble and sacrifice may not be offered up in the bloom of youth
to a political dogma at the bidding of secret diplomacy.''
Marxism has developed a patriotism of its own, if indeed it has not
yet been completely crystallized into a religion. Like the
``capitalistic'' governments it so vehemently attacks, it demands
self-sacrifice and even martyrdom from the faithful comrades. But
since its strength depends to so great a degree upon ``conversion,''
upon docile acceptance of the doctrines of the ``Master'' as
interpreted by the popes and bishops of this new church, it fails to
arouse the irreligious proletariat. The Marxian Socialist boasts of
his understanding of ``working class psychology'' and criticizes the
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