| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: just one month absent from Baltimore, before the matter was
decided; and the time really seemed full six months.
One trouble over, and on comes another. The slave's life is full
of uncertainty. I had returned to Baltimore but a short time,
when the tidings reached me, that my friend, Mrs. Lucretia, who
was only second in my regard to Mrs. Hugh Auld, was dead, leaving
her husband and only one child--a daughter, named Amanda.
Shortly after the death of Mrs. Lucretia, strange to say, Master
Andrew died, leaving his wife and one child. Thus, the whole
family of Anthonys was swept away; only two children remained.
All this happened within five years of my leaving Col. Lloyd's.
My Bondage and My Freedom |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Koran: the earth, that yet it might rescue him!
Nay, verily, it is a flame,-dragging by the scalp! it shall call
those who retreated and turned their backs and who amassed and
hoarded!
Verily, man is by nature rash! when evil touches him, very
impatient; when good touches him, niggardly; all save those who
pray, who remain at their prayers, and in whose wealth is a reasonable
due (set aside) for him who asks and him who is kept from asking,
and those who believe in a day of judgment, and those who shrink in
terror from the torment of their Lord;-verily, the torment of their
Lord is not safe;-and those who guard their private parts, except
The Koran |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: remember that, young man. Then I worked backward, as it were; and by
means of half-tints, and glazings whose transparency I kept
diminishing little by little, I was able to cast strong shadows
deepening almost to blackness. The shadows of ordinary painters are
not of the same texture as their tones of light. They are wood, brass,
iron, anything you please except flesh in shadow. We feel that if the
figures changed position the shady places would not be wiped off, and
would remain dark spots which never could be made luminous. I have
avoided that blunder, though many of our most illustrious painters
have fallen into it. In my work you will see whiteness beneath the
opacity of the broadest shadow. Unlike the crowd of ignoramuses, who
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