| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: snowflakes to the staring eyes of that whaler's crew. Evidently
they didn't believe in ghosts, for on arrival into port her captain
unromantically reported having sighted a disabled steamer in
latitude somewhere about 50 degrees S. and a longitude still more
uncertain. Other steamers came out to look for her, and ultimately
towed her away from the cold edge of the world into a harbour with
docks and workshops, where, with many blows of hammers, her
pulsating heart of steel was set going again to go forth presently
in the renewed pride of its strength, fed on fire and water,
breathing black smoke into the air, pulsating, throbbing,
shouldering its arrogant way against the great rollers in blind
The Mirror of the Sea |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom by William and Ellen Craft: her slave; in fact, her not being able to write
would have made this quite impossible. We knew
that no public conveyance would take us, or any
other slave, as a passenger, without our master's
consent. This consent could never be obtained to
pass into a free State. My wife's being muffled in
the poultices, &c., furnished a plausible excuse for
avoiding general conversation, of which most
Yankee travellers are passionately fond.
There are a large number of free negroes residing
in the southern States; but in Georgia (and I
Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lucile by Owen Meredith: By sob after sob, while her bosom yet pulsed
In its pressure on his, as the effort within it
Lived and died with each tender tumultuous minute.
"O Alfred, O Alfred! forgive me," she cried--
"Forgive me!"
"Forgive you, my poor child!" he sigh'd;
"But I never have blamed you for aught that I know,
And I have not one thought that reproaches you now."
From her arms he unwound himself gently. And so
He forced her down softly beside him. Below
The canopy shading their couch, they sat down.
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