| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau: satisfied with men as they are, and to treat them
accordingly, and not according, in some respects, to my
requisitions and expectations of what they and I ought to
be, then, like a good Mussulman and fatalist, I should
endeavor to be satisfied with things as they are, and say it
is the will of God. And, above all, there is this
difference between resisting this and a purely brute or
natural force, that I can resist this with some effect; but
I cannot expect, like Orpheus, to change the nature of the
rocks and trees and beasts.
I do not wish to quarrel with any man or nation. I do
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom by William and Ellen Craft: to read and write. But, as the ladies were so anx-
ious that we should learn, and so willing to teach
us, we concluded to give our whole minds to the
work, and see what could be done. By so doing,
at the end of the three weeks we remained with the
good family we could spell and write our names
quite legibly. They all begged us to stop longer;
but, as we were not safe in the State of Pennsylvania,
and also as we wished to commence doing some-
thing for a livelihood, we did not remain.
When the time arrived for us to leave for Boston,
Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: The lost life-buoy was now to be replaced; Starbuck was directed to
see to it; but as no cask of sufficient lightness could be found, and
as in the feverish eagerness of what seemed the approaching crisis of
the voyage, all hands were impatient of any toil but what was
directly connected with its final end, whatever that might prove to
be; therefore, they were going to leave the ship's stern unprovided
with a buoy, when by certain strange signs and inuendoes Queequeg
hinted a hint concerning his coffin.
"A life-buoy of a coffin!" cried Starbuck, starting.
"Rather queer, that, I should say," said Stubb.
"It will make a good enough one," said Flask, "the carpenter here can
Moby Dick |
