| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Common Sense by Thomas Paine: And he who can calmly hear, and digest such doctrine,
hath forfeited his claim to rationality an apostate
from the order of manhood; and ought to be considered as one,
who hath not only given up the proper dignity of man,
but sunk himself beneath the rank of animals,
and contemptibly crawl through the world like a worm.
However, it matters very little now, what the king of England
either says or does; he hath wickedly broken through every
moral and human obligation, trampled nature and conscience
beneath his feet; and by a steady and constitutional spirit
of insolence and cruelty, procured for himself an universal
Common Sense |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson: And this, in thy green farm, the only grave.
DE M. ANTONIO
NOW Antoninus, in a smiling age,
Counts of his life the fifteenth finished stage.
The rounded days and the safe years he sees,
Nor fears death's water mounting round his knees.
To him remembering not one day is sad,
Not one but that its memory makes him glad.
So good men lengthen life; and to recall
The past is to have twice enjoyed it all.
AD MAGISTRUM LUDI
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Falk by Joseph Conrad: above. He turned us out most unnecessarily at an
ungodly hour, but it was nearly eleven in the morn-
ing before he brought me up a cable's length from
Hermann's ship. And he did it very badly too, in
a hurry, and nearly contriving to miss altogether
the patch of good holding ground, because, for-
sooth, he had caught sight of Hermann's niece on
the poop. And so did I; and probably as soon as
he had seen her himself. I saw the modest, sleek
glory of the tawny head, and the full, grey shape
of the girlish print frock she filled so perfectly, so
Falk |
