| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: pile on the Essex shore the ship is surrendered fairly to the grasp
of the river. That hint of loneliness, that soul of the sea which
had accompanied her as far as the Lower Hope Reach, abandons her at
the turn of the first bend above. The salt, acrid flavour is gone
out of the air, together with a sense of unlimited space opening
free beyond the threshold of sandbanks below the Nore. The waters
of the sea rush on past Gravesend, tumbling the big mooring buoys
laid along the face of the town; but the sea-freedom stops short
there, surrendering the salt tide to the needs, the artifices, the
contrivances of toiling men. Wharves, landing-places, dock-gates,
waterside stairs, follow each other continuously right up to London
The Mirror of the Sea |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: Hicks's baby, and having fallen into a sound sleep, the baby
cried, waking Mrs. Hicks, but not the slave-girl. Mrs. Hicks,
becoming infuriated at the girl's tardiness, after calling
several times, jumped from her bed and seized a piece of fire-
wood from the fireplace; and then, as she lay fast asleep, she
deliberately pounded in her skull and breast-bone, and thus ended
her life. I will not say that this most horrid murder produced
no sensation in the community. It _did_ produce a sensation;
but, incredible to tell, the moral sense of the community was
blunted too entirely by the ordinary nature of slavery horrors,
to bring the murderess to punishment. A warrant was issued for
My Bondage and My Freedom |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Enoch Arden, &c. by Alfred Tennyson: Who, never naming God except for gain,
So never took that useful name in vain;
Made Him his catspaw and the Cross his tool,
And Christ the bait to trap his dupe and fool;
Nor deeds of gift, but gifts of grace he forged,
And snakelike slimed his victim ere he gorged;
And oft at Bible meetings, o'er the rest
Arising, did his holy oily best,
Dropping the too rough H in Hell and Heaven,
To spread the Word by which himself had thriven."
How like you this old satire?'
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