| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Anthem by Ayn Rand: Do as you please with us, but do not send
us away from you."
Then they knelt, and bowed their golden
head before us.
We had never thought of that which we did.
We bent to raise the Golden One to their feet,
but when we touched them, it was as if madness
had stricken us. We seized their body
and we pressed our lips to theirs.
The Golden One breathed once,
and their breath was a moan,
 Anthem |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: slide, but we didn't know exactly what was at the bottom of it. Now,
you ought to be wise, but you ain't. You've got New York wiseness,
which means that you judge a man by the outside of his clothes. That
ain't right. You ought to look at the lining and seams and the button-
holes. While we are waiting for the patrol wagon you might get out
your little stub pencil and take notes for another funny piece in the
paper."
And then Buck turns to me and says: "I don't care what Atterbury
thinks. He only put in brains, and if he gets his capital out he's
lucky. But what do you say, Pick?"
"Me?" says I. "You ought to know me, Buck. I didn't know who was
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: shifts of theology and superstition. The one held me an abject
slave--a prisoner for life, punished for some transgression in
which I had no lot nor part; and the other counseled me to manly
endeavor to secure my freedom. This contest was now ended; my
chains were broken, and the victory brought me unspeakable joy.
But my gladness was short-lived, for I was not yet out of the reach
and power of the slave-holders. I soon found that New York was not quite
so free or so safe a refuge as I had supposed, and a sense of loneliness
and insecurity again oppressed me most sadly. I chanced to meet on the street,
a few hours after my landing, a fugitive slave whom I had once known well
in slavery. The information received from him alarmed me. The fugitive
|