| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: deserted by its princes, was laid waste and burned to the quick by
pitiless troops of Mongolian robbers; when men deprived of house and
home grew brave there; when, amid conflagrations, threatening
neighbours, and eternal terrors, they settled down, and growing
accustomed to looking these things straight in the face, trained
themselves not to know that there was such a thing as fear in the
world; when the old, peacable Slav spirit was fired with warlike
flame, and the Cossack state was instituted--a free, wild outbreak of
Russian nature--and when all the river-banks, fords, and like suitable
places were peopled by Cossacks, whose number no man knew. Their bold
comrades had a right to reply to the Sultan when he asked how many
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave by Frederick Douglass: the gratitude and affection I bear them; but pru-
dence forbids;--not that it would injure me, but it
might embarrass them; for it is almost an unpar-
donable offence to teach slaves to read in this Chris-
tian country. It is enough to say of the dear little
fellows, that they lived on Philpot Street, very near
Durgin and Bailey's ship-yard. I used to talk this
matter of slavery over with them. I would sometimes
say to them, I wished I could be as free as they
would be when they got to be men. "You will be
free as soon as you are twenty-one, ~but I am a slave
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Enchanted Island of Yew by L. Frank Baum: continued to rush through the opening in the rocks and to fall beneath
the steady blows of the prince's staff until every one of them lay
senseless before the victor. At first they had piled themselves upon
one another very neatly; but the pile got so high at last that the
prince was obliged to assist the last thieves to leap to the top of
the heap before they completely lost their senses.
I have no doubt our prince, feeling himself yet strange in the new
form he had acquired, and freshly transported from the forest glades
in which he had always lived, was fully as much astonished at his deed
of valor as were the robbers themselves; and if he shuddered a little
when looking upon the heap of senseless thieves you must forgive him
The Enchanted Island of Yew |
