| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, 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 second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: rein broke. They swerved to the right, swinging the chariot
sideways with a grating noise, and dashing it against the
stone parapet of the arena. In an instant the wheel was
shattered. The axle struck the ground, and the chariot was
dragged onward, rocking and staggering.
By a strenuous effort Hermas kept his place on the frail
platform, clinging to the unbroken rein. But the boy was
tossed lightly from his side at the first shock. His head struck
the wall. And when Hermas turned to look for him, he was lying
like a broken flower on the sand.
VI
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: family? Undoubtedly ethics and morality cannot change; they are
one: but obligations vary in the different states of life. Just as
the sun lights up a scene diversely and produces differences which
we admire, so morality conforms social duty to rank, to position.
The peccadillo of a soldier is a crime in a general, and vice-
versa. Observances are not alike in all cases. They are not the
same for the gleaner in the field, for the girl who sews at
fifteen sous a day, for the daughter of a petty shopkeeper, for
the young bourgoise, for the child of a rich merchant, for the
heiress of a noble family, for a daughter of the house of Este. A
king must not stoop to pick up a piece of gold, but a laborer
Modeste Mignon |
