| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Off on a Comet by Jules Verne: Quitting their encampment and riding on, the bewildered explorers
kept close to the new shore. This, since it had ceased to be formed
by the original river bank, had considerably altered its aspect.
Frequent landslips occurred, and in many places deep chasms rifted
the ground; great gaps furrowed the fields, and trees, half uprooted,
overhung the water, remarkable by the fantastic distortions of their
gnarled trunks, looking as though they had been chopped by a hatchet.
The sinuosities of the coast line, alternately gully and headland,
had the effect of making a devious progress for the travelers,
and at sunset, although they had accomplished more than twenty miles,
they had only just arrived at the foot of the Merdeyah Mountains,
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Poems of Goethe, Bowring, Tr. by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Deceived by fortune, vanish'd from my side.
No longer do they hear my plaintive song,
The souls to whom I sang in life's young day;
Scatter'd for ever now the friendly throng,
And mute, alas! each sweet responsive lay.
My strains but to the careless crowd belong,
Their smiles but sorrow to my heart convey;
And all who heard my numbers erst with gladness,
If living yet, roam o'er the earth in sadness.
Long buried yearnings in my breast arise,
Yon calm and solemn spirit-realm to gain;
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: there be committed, with almost as much impunity as upon the deck
of a pirate ship--it is, nevertheless, altogether, to outward
seeming, a most strikingly interesting place, full of life,
activity, and spirit; and presents a very favorable contrast to
the indolent monotony and languor of Tuckahoe. Keen as was my
regret and great as was my sorrow at leaving the latter, I was
not long in adapting myself to this, my new home. A man's
troubles are always half disposed of, when he finds endurance his
only remedy. I found myself here; there was no getting away; and
what remained for me, but to make the best of it? Here were
plenty of children to play with, and plenty of places of pleasant
My Bondage and My Freedom |
