| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: mirage or true gold far away! I have been telling
you more or less in my own words what I learned
fragmentarily in the course of two or three years,
during which I seldom missed an opportunity of a
friendly chat with him. He told me this story of
his adventure with many flashes of white teeth and
lively glances of black eyes, at first in a sort of anx-
ious baby-talk, then, as he acquired the language,
with great fluency, but always with that singing,
soft, and at the same time vibrating intonation that
instilled a strangely penetrating power into the
Amy Foster |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Augsburg Confession by Philip Melanchthon: 12.
Article XII: Of Repentance.
Of Repentance they teach that for those who have fallen after Baptism
there is remission of sins whenever they are converted and that
the Church ought to impart absolution to those thus returning to
repentance. Now, repentance consists properly of these two parts:
One is contrition, that is, terrors smiting the conscience through
the knowledge of sin; the other is faith, which is born of the
Gospel, or of absolution, and believes that for Christ's sake,
sins are forgiven, comforts the conscience, and delivers it from
terrors. Then good works are bound to follow, which are the fruits
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Astoria by Washington Irving: Chinese markets. The ship was manned by natives, but the officers
were Englishmen. She accomplished her voyage, and returned in
safety to the islands, with the Hawaiian flag floating gloriously
in the breeze. The king hastened on board, expecting to find his
sandal-wood converted into crapes and damasks, and other rich
stuffs of China, but found, to his astonishment, by the
legerdemain of traffic, his cargo had all disappeared, and, in
place of it, remained a bill of charges amounting to three
thousand dollars. It was some time before he could be made to
comprehend certain of the most important items of the bill, such
as pilotage, anchorage, and custom-house fees; but when he
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