| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Man against the Sky by Edwin Arlington Robinson: There may be nothing kinder for him here
Than shafts and agonies;
And under these
He may cry out and stay on horribly;
Or, seeing in death too small a thing to fear,
He may go forward like a stoic Roman
Where pangs and terrors in his pathway lie, --
Or, seizing the swift logic of a woman,
Curse God and die.
Or maybe there, like many another one
Who might have stood aloft and looked ahead,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: voice. Following the example of Fontenelle, he was thrifty of pulse-
strokes, and concentrated all human sensibility in the innermost
sanctuary of Self.
"His life flowed soundless as the sands of an hour-glass. His victims
sometimes flew into a rage and made a great deal of noise, followed by
a great silence; so is it in a kitchen after a fowl's neck has been
wrung.
"Toward evening this bill of exchange incarnate would assume ordinary
human shape, and his metals were metamorphosed into a human heart.
When he was satisfied with his day's business, he would rub his hands;
his inward glee would escape like smoke through every rift and wrinkle
Gobseck |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave by Frederick Douglass: a determination to be free. The gratification af-
forded by the triumph was a full compensation for
whatever else might follow, even death itself. He
only can understand the deep satisfaction which I
experienced, who has himself repelled by force the
bloody arm of slavery. I felt as I never felt before.
It was a glorious resurrection, from the tomb of
slavery, to the heaven of freedom. My long-crushed
spirit rose, cowardice departed, bold defiance took
its place; and I now resolved that, however long I
might remain a slave in form, the day had passed
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave |
