| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: wouldn't have them, either! So I don't ever attempt to explain to them
that the world has to go on. They'd say, 'We don't see the necessity!'
When slavery stopped, they stopped, you see, just like a clock. Their
hand points to 1865--it has never moved a minute since. And some day"--
his voice grew suddenly tender--"they'll go, one by one, to join the
still older ones. And I shall miss them very much."
For a moment I did not speak, but watched the roses nodding and moving.
Then I said: "May I say that I shall miss them, too?"
He looked at me. "Miss our old Kings Port people?" He didn't invite
outsiders to do that!
"Don't you see how it is?" I murmured. "It was the same thing once with
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith: Cully's head between Billy's legs, a raising of both arms,
grabbing Billy around the waist, and in a flash the hope of the
house of McGaw was swept off his feet, Cully beneath him, and in
full run toward Tom's house. The bystanders laughed; they thought
it only a boyish trick. Billy kicked and struggled, but Cully
held on. When they were clear of the crowd, Cully shook him to
the ground and grabbed him by the coat-collar.
"Say, young feller, where wuz ye when de fire started?"
At this Billy broke into a howl, and one of the crowd, some
distance off, looked up. Cully clapped his hand over his mouth.
"None o' that, or I'll mash yer mug--see?" standing over him with
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Man against the Sky by Edwin Arlington Robinson: What was he, and what was he not?
How much it was of him we met
We cannot ever know; nor yet
Shall all he gave us quite atone
For what was his, and his alone;
Nor need we now, since he knew best,
Nourish an ethical unrest:
Rarely at once will nature give
The power to be Flammonde and live.
We cannot know how much we learn
From those who never will return,
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