| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: morality of the act I dispose of as follows: I am myself; you
are yourself; we are two distinct persons, equal persons. What
you are, I am. You are a man, and so am I. God created both,
and made us separate beings. I am not by nature bond to you, or
you to me. Nature does not make your existence depend upon me,
or mine to depend upon yours. I cannot walk upon your legs, or
you upon mine. I cannot breathe for you, or you for me; I must
breathe for myself, and you for yourself. We are distinct
persons, and are each equally provided with faculties necessary
to our individual existence. In leaving you, I took nothing but
what belonged to me, and in no way lessened your means for
 My Bondage and My Freedom |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Love Songs by Sara Teasdale: To see you, too, grown strange to me and far. . . .
I used to wonder how the park would be
If one night we could have it all alone --
No lovers with close arm-encircled waists
To whisper and break in upon our dreams.
And now we have it! Every wish comes true!
We are alone now in a fleecy world;
Even the stars have gone. We two alone!
[End of Love Songs.]
{As an item of interest to the reader, the following,
which was at the end of this edition, is included.
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: mopped his face.
"We have desperate people to handle," he said pompously, "and we
may need desperate means."
"Hotchkiss is like the small boy whose one ambition was to have
people grow ashen and tremble at the mention of his name," McKnight
jibed. But they were serious enough, both of them, under it all,
and when they had told me what they planned, I was serious, too.
"You're compounding a felony," I remonstrated, when they had
explained. "I'm not eager to be locked away, but, by Jove, to
offer her the stolen notes in exchange for Sullivan!"
"We haven't got either of them, you know," McKnight remonstrated,
 The Man in Lower Ten |