| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave by Frederick Douglass: land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the
widest possible difference--so wide, that to receive
the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to re-
ject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the
friend of the one, is of necessity to be the enemy
of the other. I love the pure, peaceable, and impar-
tial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the cor-
rupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plunder-
ing, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land.
Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful
one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity.
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The School For Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan: or be stuck down to an old Spinet to strum your father to sleep
after a Fox Chase.
LADY TEAZLE. Scandalous--Sir Peter not a word of it true--
SIR PETER. Yes, Madam--These were the recreations I took you from--
and now--no one more extravagantly in the Fashion--Every Fopery
adopted--a head-dress to o'er top Lady Pagoda with feathers pendant
horizontal and perpendicular--you forget[,] Lady Teazle--when a little
wired gauze with a few Beads made you a fly Cap not much bigger than
a blew-bottle, and your Hair was comb'd smooth over a Roll--
LADY TEAZLE. Shocking! horrible Roll!!
SIR PETER. But now--you must have your coach--Vis-a-vis, and three
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Ion by Plato: speak of them by any rules of art: they are simply inspired to utter that
to which the Muse impels them, and that only; and when inspired, one of
them will make dithyrambs, another hymns of praise, another choral strains,
another epic or iambic verses--and he who is good at one is not good at any
other kind of verse: for not by art does the poet sing, but by power
divine. Had he learned by rules of art, he would have known how to speak
not of one theme only, but of all; and therefore God takes away the minds
of poets, and uses them as his ministers, as he also uses diviners and holy
prophets, in order that we who hear them may know them to be speaking not
of themselves who utter these priceless words in a state of
unconsciousness, but that God himself is the speaker, and that through them
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