| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: enough to keep the metal running like water, was more favorable
to action than thought; yet here I often nailed a newspaper to the post
near my bellows, and read while I was performing the up and down motion
of the heavy beam by which the bellows was inflated and discharged.
It was the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties, and I look back to it now,
after so many years, with some complacency and a little wonder that I could
have been so earnest and persevering in any pursuit other than for my
daily bread. I certainly saw nothing in the conduct of those around
to inspire me with such interest: they were all devoted exclusively
to what their hands found to do. I am glad to be able to say that,
during my engagement in this foundry, no complaint was ever made against
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: towards the marsh,--made to recoil by the might of the ghostly
enemy with whom they had striven a thousand years,--the Shrieker,
the Sky-Sweeper, the awful Sea-Wind!
Never had he given them so terrible a wrestle as on the night of
the tenth of August, eighteen hundred and fifty-six. All the
waves of the excited Gulf thronged in as if to see, and lifted up
their voices, and pushed, and roared, until the cheniere was
islanded by such a billowing as no white man's eyes had ever
looked upon before. Grandly the oaks bore themselves, but every
fibre of their knotted thews was strained in the unequal contest,
and two of the giants were overthrown, upturning, as they fell,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Sportsman by Xenophon: undertaking might as well be let alone."
The net-keeper should be a man with a real passion for the work, and
in tongue a Hellene, about twenty years of age, of wiry build, agile
at once and strong, with pluck enough to overcome the toils imposed on
him,[2] and to take pleasure in the work.
[2] {toutous}, "by this, that, or the other good quality."
The ordinary small nets should be made of fine Phasian or
Carthaginian[3] flax, and so too should the road nets and the larger
hayes.[4] These small nets should be nine-threaded [made of three
strandes, and each strand of three threads],[5] five spans[6] in
depth,[7] and two palms[8] at the nooses or pockets.[9] There should
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