| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: a joke. "Take care. Those who don't live there would call it the piano
snobile."
"Ah!" cried the delighted lady, "they'd never have the wit!"
"Did you ever hear," I continued, "the Bostonian's remark--'The mission
of America is to vulgarize the world'?"
"I never expected to agree so totally with a Bostonian!" declared Mrs.
Gregory.
"Nothing so hopeful," I pursued, "has ever been said of us. For
refinement and thoroughness and tradition delay progress, and we are
sweeping them out of the road as fast as we can."
"Come away, Julia," said Mrs. Gregory. "The young gentleman is getting
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin: a twinkling in the eye, which cannot indicate anything but
cunning and ferocity. Their figures are tall and bulky; but
not comparable in elegance with those of the working-
classes in Tahiti.
But their persons and houses are filthily dirty and offensive:
the idea of washing either their bodies or their clothes
never seems to enter their heads. I saw a chief, who was
wearing a shirt black and matted with filth, and when asked
how it came to be so dirty, he replied, with surprise, "Do
not you see it is an old one?" Some of the men have shirts;
but the common dress is one or two large blankets, generally
The Voyage of the Beagle |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: army, that she did! My name ain't no more Mouche than nothing at all.
Grandpa keeps telling me all my advantages. I'm not on the register,
and when I'm old enough to be drafted I can go all over France and
they can't take me."
"Are you fond of your grandfather?" said the countess, trying to look
into the child's heart.
"My! doesn't he box my ears when he feels like it! but then, after
all, he's such fun; he's such good company! He says he pays himself
that way for having taught me to read and write."
"Can you read?" asked the count.
"Yah, I should think so, Monsieur le comte, and fine writing too--just
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