| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Foolish Virgin by Thomas Dixon: He would follow her to the ends of the earth and kill
any living thing that stood in his way. And when he
found her at last he would kill her.
How could she have been so blind! There was no
longer any mystery about his personality. The slender
hands and feet, which she had thought beautiful in her
infatuation, were merely the hands and feet of a thief.
The strength of jaw and neck and shoulders had made him
the most daring of all thieves--a burglar.
His strange moods were no longer strange. He
laughed for joy at the wild mountain gorges and crags
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom by William and Ellen Craft: he seemed thunderstruck on finding a fugitive
slave and his wife, instead of a "young cotton planter
and his nigger." As his eyes travelled round the
room, he said to me, "Where is your master?" I
pointed him out. The man gravely replied, "I am
not joking, I really wish to see your master." I
pointed him out again, but at first he could not
believe his eyes; he said "he knew that was not
the gentleman that came with me."
But, after some conversation, we satisfied him
that we were fugitive slaves, and had just escaped
Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: joy, as one who had obtained the greatest of goods.
ALCIBIADES: And not only I, Socrates, but any one else who should meet
with such luck.
SOCRATES: Yet you would not accept the dominion and lordship of all the
Hellenes and all the barbarians in exchange for your life?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly not: for then what use could I make of them?
SOCRATES: And would you accept them if you were likely to use them to a
bad and mischievous end?
ALCIBIADES: I would not.
SOCRATES: You see that it is not safe for a man either rashly to accept
whatever is offered him, or himself to request a thing, if he is likely to
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