| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Don Quixote by Miquel de Cervantes: to torture and crush thee that thou knowest it thyself. And in
confirmation of the truth of what I say, let me repeat to thee a
stanza made by the famous poet Luigi Tansillo at the end of the
first part of his 'Tears of Saint Peter,' which says thus:
The anguish and the shame but greater grew
In Peter's heart as morning slowly came;
No eye was there to see him, well he knew,
Yet he himself was to himself a shame;
Exposed to all men's gaze, or screened from view,
A noble heart will feel the pang the same;
A prey to shame the sinning soul will be,
Don Quixote |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Mayflower Compact: as shall be thought most meete and convenient for the
Generall Good of the Colonie; unto which we promise
all due Submission and Obedience.
In Witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names
at Cape Cod the eleventh of November, in the Raigne of our
Sovereigne Lord, King James of England, France, and Ireland,
the eighteenth, and of Scotland, the fiftie-fourth,
Anno. Domini, 1620.
Mr. John Carver Mr. Stephen Hopkins
Mr. William Bradford Digery Priest
Mr. Edward Winslow Thomas Williams
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens: to-morrow. But if the whole population had had him in their minds,
and had wished his life to be spared, not one among them could have
done so with a purer zeal or greater singleness of heart than the
good locksmith.
Barnaby was to die. There was no hope. It is not the least evil
attendant upon the frequent exhibition of this last dread
punishment, of Death, that it hardens the minds of those who deal
it out, and makes them, though they be amiable men in other
respects, indifferent to, or unconscious of, their great
responsibility. The word had gone forth that Barnaby was to die.
It went forth, every month, for lighter crimes. It was a thing so
Barnaby Rudge |
