| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: as a recognized man of genius, were, doubtless, genial and
pleasant resting places in his hitherto thorny and troubled
journey through life. There are joys on the earth, and, to the
wayfaring fugitive from American slavery or American caste, this
is one of them.
But his sojourn in England was more than a joy to Mr. Douglass.
Like the platform at Nantucket, it awakened him to the
consciousness of new powers that lay in him. From the pupilage
of Garrisonism he rose to the dignity of a teacher and a thinker;
his opinions on the broader aspects of the great American
question were earnestly and incessantly sought, from various
My Bondage and My Freedom |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death by Patrick Henry: ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them?
Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years.
Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the
subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain.
Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we
find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir,
deceive ourselves. Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert
the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated;
we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have
implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and
Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: were in ecstasies, and proclaimed him a genius.
Tchartkoff became a fashionable artist in every sense of the word. He
began to dine out, to escort ladies to picture galleries, to dress
foppishly, and to assert audibly that an artist should belong to
society, that he must uphold his profession, that artists mostly dress
like showmakers, do not know how to behave themselves, do not maintain
the highest tone, and are lacking in all polish. At home, in his
studio, he carried cleanliness and spotlessness to the last extreme,
set up two superb footmen, took fashionable pupils, dressed several
times a day, curled his hair, practised various manners of receiving
his callers, and busied himself in adorning his person in every
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
