| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: for I have lacked food many times ere now."
The traveller took the child in his arms and wrapped his cloak
about him, while his heart stirred with shame and anger against
the gratuitous cruelty of the instruments in this persecution. In
the awakened warmth of his feelings he resolved that, at whatever
risk, he would not forsake the poor little defenceless being whom
Heaven had confided to his care. With this determination he left
the accursed field, and resumed the homeward path from which the
wailing of the boy had called him. The light and motionless
burden scarcely impeded his progress, and he soon beheld the fire
rays from the windows of the cottage which he, a native of a
Twice Told Tales |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: ANYTUS: I have heard of them.
SOCRATES: Now, can there be a doubt that Thucydides, whose children were
taught things for which he had to spend money, would have taught them to be
good men, which would have cost him nothing, if virtue could have been
taught? Will you reply that he was a mean man, and had not many friends
among the Athenians and allies? Nay, but he was of a great family, and a
man of influence at Athens and in all Hellas, and, if virtue could have
been taught, he would have found out some Athenian or foreigner who would
have made good men of his sons, if he could not himself spare the time from
cares of state. Once more, I suspect, friend Anytus, that virtue is not a
thing which can be taught?
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: unending toil lay in them, whatever hungry loneliness, or
coarseness of deed, she saw it all, shrinking from nothing. She
looked at the big blue-corded veins in her wrist, full of
untainted blood,--gauged herself coolly, her lease of life, her
power of endurance,--measured it out against the work waiting for
her. No short task, she knew that. She would be old before it
was finished, quite an old woman, hard, mechanical, worn out.
But the day would be so bright, when it came, it would atone for
all: the day would be bright, the home warm again; it would hold
all that life had promised her of good.
All? Oh, Margret, Margret! Was there no sullen doubt in the
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
