| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: so devoted to the countess that nothing so far had transpired outside;
but she dreaded daily some public outburst of a frenzy no longer
controlled by respect for opinion.
Later I learned the dreadful details of the count's treatment of his
wife. Instead of supporting her when the children were ill, he
assailed her with dark predictions and made her responsible for all
future illnesses, because she refused to let the children take the
crazy doses which he prescribed. When she went to walk with them the
count would predict a storm in the face of a clear sky; if by chance
the prediction proved true, the satisfaction he felt made him quite
indifferent to any harm to the children. If one of them was ailing,
The Lily of the Valley |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Options by O. Henry: can guess at it, I preach to 'em in the council-house (I'm the
council) on the law of supply and demand. I praise supply and knock
demand. I use the same text every time. You wouldn't think, W. D.,'
says Shane, 'that I had poetry in me, would you?'
"'Well,' says I, 'I wouldn't know whether to call it poetry or not.'
"'Tennyson,' says Shane, 'furnishes the poetic gospel I preach. I
always considered him the boss poet. Here's the way the text goes:
"For, not to admire, if a man could learn it, were more
Than to walk all day like a Sultan of old in a garden of spice."
"'You see, I teach 'em to cut out demand--that supply is the main
thing. I teach 'em not to desire anything beyond their simplest
Options |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Main Street by Sinclair Lewis: young men born in Minnesota and in Massachusetts, the question
of prohibition, the future cost of motor tires, and wasn't
it true that American aviators put it all over these Frenchmen?
They were glad to find that he agreed with them on every
point.
As she heard Bresnahan announce, "We're perfectly willing
to talk to any committee the men may choose, but we're not
going to stand for some outside agitator butting in and telling
us how we're going to run our plant!" Carol remembered
that Jackson Elder (now meekly receiving New Ideas) had
said the same thing in the same words.
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