| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: And like a mountain not to be removed.
But now thy uncle is removing hence;
As princes do their courts, when they are cloy'd
With long continuance in a settled place.
PLANTAGENET.
O, uncle, would some part of my young years
Might but redeem the passage of your age!
MORTIMER.
Thou dost then wrong me, as that slaughterer doth
Which giveth many wounds when one will kill.
Mourn not, except thou sorrow for my good;
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Walking by Henry David Thoreau: though they lay half smothered between two musty leaves in a
library--aye, to bloom and bear fruit there, after their kind,
annually, for the faithful reader, in sympathy with surrounding
Nature.
I do not know of any poetry to quote which adequately expresses
this yearning for the Wild. Approached from this side, the best
poetry is tame. I do not know where to find in any literature,
ancient or modern, any account which contents me of that Nature
with which even I am acquainted. You will perceive that I demand
something which no Augustan nor Elizabethan age, which no
culture, in short, can give. Mythology comes nearer to it than
Walking |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Common Sense by Thomas Paine: is formed in misfortune, are, of all others, the most lasting and unalterable.
Our present union is marked with both these characters: we are young
and we have been distressed; but our concord hath withstood our troubles,
and fixes a memorable are for posterity to glory in.
The present time, likewise, is that peculiar time, which never happens
to a nation but once, viz. the time of forming itself into a government.
Most nations have let slip the opportunity, and by that means have been
compelled to receive laws from their conquerors, instead of making laws
for themselves. First, they had a king, and then a form of government;
whereas, the articles or charter of government, should be formed first,
and men delegated to execute them afterward but from the errors of other
Common Sense |
