| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Common Sense by Thomas Paine: to foreign courts, setting forth the miseries we have endured,
and the peaceable methods we have ineffectually used for redress;
declaring, at the same time, that not being able, any longer,
to live happily or safely under the cruel disposition of the British court,
we had been driven to the necessity of breaking off all connections with her;
at the same time, assuring all such courts of our peaceable disposition
towards them, and of our desire of entering into trade with them:
Such a memorial would produce more good effects to this Continent,
than if a ship were freighted with petitions to Britain.
Under our present denomination of British subjects, we can neither
be received nor heard abroad: The custom of all courts is against us,
Common Sense |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Summer by Edith Wharton: the other bare to the knee: a swollen glistening leg
with a ragged stocking rolled down about the ankle. The
woman lay on her back, her eyes staring up unblinkingly
at the candle that trembled in Mr. Miles's hand.
"She jus' dropped off," a woman said, over the shoulder
of the others; and the young man added: "I jus' come in
and found her."
An elderly man with lank hair and a feeble grin
pushed between them. "It was like this: I says to her
on'y the night before: if you don't take and quit, I
says to her..."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri: As well in one as in the other case;
Because it happens that full often bends
Current opinion in the false direction,
And then the feelings bind the intellect.
Far more than uselessly he leaves the shore,
(Since he returneth not the same he went,)
Who fishes for the truth, and has no skill;
And in the world proofs manifest thereof
Parmenides, Melissus, Brissus are,
And many who went on and knew not whither;
Thus did Sabellius, Arius, and those fools
The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) |
