| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: SALTIMBANQUE; if he be not frugal, he will find it hard to continue
to be honest. Some day, when the butcher is knocking at the door,
he may be tempted, he may be obliged, to turn out and sell a
slovenly piece of work. If the obligation shall have arisen
through no wantonness of his own, he is even to be commanded; for
words cannot describe how far more necessary it is that a man
should support his family, than that he should attain to - or
preserve - distinction in the arts. But if the pressure comes,
through his own fault, he has stolen, and stolen under trust, and
stolen (which is the worst of all) in such a way that no law can
reach him.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau: bestow the fewest possible thoughts on it. It is not many
moments that I live under a government, even in this world.
If a man is thought-free, fancy-free, imagination-free,
that which is not never for a long time appearing to be
to him, unwise rulers or reformers cannot fatally interrupt him.
I know that most men think differently from myself; but
those whose lives are by profession devoted to the study of
these or kindred subjects content me as little as any.
Statesmen and legislators, standing so completely within the
institution, never distinctly and nakedly behold it.
They speak of moving society, but have no resting-place
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic: He missed the spirit of her remark. "You are right,"
he said slowly. "It is too sad a thing to talk about.
But there! it is my load, and I bear it, and there's nothing
more to be said."
Theron drew a heavy sigh, and let his fingers toy
abstractedly with a ribbon on the outer edge of Celia's
penumbra of apparel.
"No," she said. "We mustn't snivel, and we mustn't sulk.
When I get into a rage it makes me ill, and I storm my way
through it and tear things, but it doesn't last long,
and I come out of it feeling all the better. I don't know
The Damnation of Theron Ware |
