| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy: endless questions of choice between the respective ways.
But the question is now as dead as the scot-and-lot freeholder,
the road waggoner, and the mail coachman who disputed it;
and probably not a single inhabitant of Stoke-Barehills is now even
aware that the two roads which part in his town ever meet again;
for nobody now drives up and down the great western highway dally.
The most familiar object in Stoke-Barehills nowadays is its cemetery,
standing among some picturesque mediaeval ruins beside the railway;
the modern chapels, modern tombs, and modern shrubs having a look
of intrusiveness amid the crumbling and ivy-covered decay of the
ancient walls.
Jude the Obscure |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from I Have A Dream by Martin Luther King, Jr.: honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro
people a bad check which has come back marked "insufficient
funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is
bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds
in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have
come to cash this check -- a check that will give us upon demand
the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also
come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce
urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of
cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now
is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Gambara by Honore de Balzac: discordant sounds struck out haphazard in such a way as to be
excruciating to the least sensitive ear. It is difficult to give any
idea of the grotesque performance. New words would be needed to
describe this impossible music.
Andrea, painfully affected by this worthy man's madness, colored, and
stole a glance at Marianna; while she, turning pale and looking down,
could not restrain her tears. In the midst of this chaos of notes,
Gambara had every now and then given vent to his rapture in
exclamations of delight. He had closed his eyes in ecstasy; had smiled
at his piano; had looked at it with a frown; put out his tongue at it
after the fashion of the inspired performer,--in short, was quite
Gambara |
