| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: only know what; with an occasional night in jail, to atone for
some drunken excess. Is that all of their lives?--of the
portion given to them and these their duplicates swarming the
streets to-day?--nothing beneath?--all? So many a political
reformer will tell you,--and many a private reformer, too, who
has gone among them with a heart tender with Christ's charity,
and come out outraged, hardened.
One rainy night, about eleven o'clock, a crowd of half-clothed
women stopped outside of the cellar-door. They were going home
from the cotton-mill.
"Good-night, Deb," said one, a mulatto, steadying herself
 Life in the Iron-Mills |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Parmenides by Plato: our brother is Antiphon. But why do you ask?' 'Let me introduce to you
some countrymen of mine, who are lovers of philosophy; they have heard that
Antiphon remembers a conversation of Socrates with Parmenides and Zeno, of
which the report came to him from Pythodorus, Zeno's friend.' 'That is
quite true.' 'And can they hear the dialogue?' 'Nothing easier; in the
days of his youth he made a careful study of the piece; at present, his
thoughts have another direction: he takes after his grandfather, and has
given up philosophy for horses.'
'We went to look for him, and found him giving instructions to a worker in
brass about a bridle. When he had done with him, and had learned from his
brothers the purpose of our visit, he saluted me as an old acquaintance,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Georgics by Virgil: To battle for the conquest horn to horn.
In Sila's forest feeds the heifer fair,
While each on each the furious rivals run;
Wound follows wound; the black blood laves their limbs;
Horns push and strive against opposing horns,
With mighty groaning; all the forest-side
And far Olympus bellow back the roar.
Nor wont the champions in one stall to couch;
But he that's worsted hies him to strange climes
Far off, an exile, moaning much the shame,
The blows of that proud conqueror, then love's loss
 Georgics |