| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Royalty Restored/London Under Charles II by J. Fitzgerald Molloy: Settle to the notice of the court, and induced the courtiers to
play his second tragedy, "The Empress of Morocco," at Whitehall,
before their majesties. This honour, which Dryden, though poet
laureate, had never received, gave Elkanah Settle unmerited
notoriety; the benefit of which was apparent by the applause his
tragedy received when subsequently produced at the Duke's Theatre
in Dorset Gardens. Nor did the honour and profit which "The
Empress of Morocco" brought him end here; it was published by
William Cademan, and had the distinction of being the first
English play ever illustrated, or sold for the price of two
shillings. It was scarce to be expected, in an age when men
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling: to the end, beating time to the swing of the verse with a bedstead-
leg. But he did most of his ravings in Greek or German. The man's
mind was a perfect rag-bag of useless things. Once, when he was
beginning to get sober, he told me that I was the only rational
being in the Inferno into which he had descended--a Virgil in the
Shades, he said--and that, in return for my tobacco, he would,
before he died, give me the materials of a new Inferno that should
make me greater than Dante. Then he fell asleep on a horse-blanket
and woke up quite calm.
"Man," said he, "when you have reached the uttermost depths of
degradation, little incidents which would vex a higher life, are to
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom by William and Ellen Craft: insulting manner, any coloured person, male or
female, that he may find at large, particularly at
night and on Sundays, without a written pass,
signed by the master or some one in authority; or
stamped free papers, certifying that the person is
the rightful owner of himself.
If the coloured person refuses to answer ques-
tions put to him, he may be beaten, and his defend-
ing himself against this attack makes him an
outlaw, and if he be killed on the spot, the mur-
derer will be exempted from all blame; but after the
Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom |
