| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: deprive us of it by keeping us from any work of art or any work of art
from us.
I may now say without danger of being misunderstood that the popular
English compromise called Cowper Templeism (unsectarian Bible
education) is not so silly as it looks. It is true that the Bible
inculcates half a dozen religions: some of them barbarous; some
cynical and pessimistic; some amoristic and romantic; some sceptical
and challenging; some kindly, simple, and intuitional; some
sophistical and intellectual; none suited to the character and
conditions of western civilization unless it be the Christianity which
was finally suppressed by the Crucifixion, and has never been put into
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: never occurred to the Baroness to interfere in any way; the adorable
woman gave the girls the full benefits of her selfishness, and in a
certain sense selfish persons are the easiest to live with; they hate
trouble, and therefore do not trouble other people; they never beset
the lives of their fellow-creatures with thorny advice and captious
fault-finding; nor do they torment you with the waspish solicitude of
excessive affection that must know all things and rule all things----"
"This comes home," said Blondet, "but my dear fellow, this is not
telling a story, this is blague----"
"Blondet, if you were not tipsy, I should really feel hurt! He is the
one serious literary character among us; for his benefit, I honor you
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Main Street by Sinclair Lewis: an aluminum ash-tray labeled "Greetings from Gopher Prairie"
--a Christian Science magazine--a stamped sofa-cushion
portraying a large ribbon tied to a small poppy, the correct
skeins of embroidery-silk lying on the pillow. Inside the shop,
a glimpse of bad carbon prints of bad and famous pictures,
shelves of phonograph records and camera films, wooden toys,
and in the midst an anxious small woman sitting in a padded
rocking chair.
A barber shop and pool room. A man in shirt sleeves,
presumably Del Snafflin the proprietor, shaving a man who had
a large Adam's apple.
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