| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom by William and Ellen Craft: horrible enough to stir a man's soul, and to make
his very blood boil, it is the thought of his dear
wife, his unprotected sister, or his young and
virtuous daughters, struggling to save themselves
from falling a prey to such demons!
It always appears strange to me that any one
who was not born a slaveholder, and steeped to the
very core in the demoralizing atmosphere of the
Southern States, can in any way palliate slavery.
It is still more surprising to see virtuous ladies
looking with patience upon, and remaining indif-
Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Pool in the Desert by Sara Jeanette Duncan: conception of him is shattered. You may be gratified on general
grounds, but distinctly put out on personal ones, especially when
your conception pointed to his inevitable removal. That was the way
I felt.
The cheque stood for so much more than its money value. It stood
for a possible, nay, a probable capacity in Armour to take his place
in the stable body of society, to recognize and make demands, to
become a taxpayer, a churchgoer, a householder, a husband. As I
gazed, the signature changed from that of a gnome with luminous eyes
who inhabited an inaccessible crag among the rhododendrons to that
of a prosperous artist-bourgeois with a silk hat for Sundays. I
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: herself.
See then that ye die not without being spectators of these
things.
XIV
You journey to Olympia to see the work of Phidias; and each
of you holds it a misfortune not to have beheld these things
before you die. Whereas when there is no need even to take a
journey, but you are on the spot, with the works before you, have
you no care to contemplate and study these?
Will you not then perceive either who you are or unto what
end you were born: or for what purpose the power of contemplation
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
