| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin: encouraging methods. Under him I acquired fair writing pretty soon,
but I failed in the arithmetic, and made no progress in it.
At ten years old I was taken home to assist my father in his business,
which was that of a tallow-chandler and sope-boiler; a business he
was not bred to, but had assumed on his arrival in New England,
and on finding his dying trade would not maintain his family,
being in little request. Accordingly, I was employed in cutting wick
for the candles, filling the dipping mold and the molds for cast candles,
attending the shop, going of errands, etc.
I disliked the trade, and had a strong inclination for the sea,
but my father declared against it; however, living near the water,
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: deck and battened down from the very start. It
was a low timber dwelling--he would say--with
wooden beams overhead, like the houses in his coun-
try, but you went into it down a ladder. It was
very large, very cold, damp and sombre, with places
in the manner of wooden boxes where people had to
sleep, one above another, and it kept on rocking all
ways at once all the time. He crept into one of
these boxes and laid down there in the clothes in
which he had left his home many days before, keep-
ing his bundle and his stick by his side. People
Amy Foster |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Just Folks by Edgar A. Guest: And children romp along the way
Whenever it is pleasant weather.
The roads of happiness are trod
By simple folks and tender-hearted,
By gentle folks that worship God
And want to live their days unparted.
There kindly people stop and talk,
Regardless of the chase for money,
There, arm in arm, the grown-ups walk
And every eye you see is sunny.
The roads of happiness are lined,
Just Folks |
