| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Exiles by Honore de Balzac: noble face, whose glory none may endure that have not won the mantle,
the laurel, and the palm--the attribute of the Powers--rose above this
cloud as white and pure as snow. It was Light within light. His wings
as they waved shed dazzling ripples in the spheres through which he
descended, as the glance of God pierces through the universe. At last
I saw the archangel in all his glory. The flower of eternal beauty
that belongs to the angels of the Spirit shone in him. In one hand he
held a green palm branch, in the other a sword of flame: the palm to
bestow on the pardoned soul, the sword to drive back all the hosts of
Hell with one sweep. As he approached, the perfumes of Heaven fell
upon us as dew. In the region where the archangel paused, the air took
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Economist by Xenophon: formed by nature with a passion for husbandry, not unlike that corn-
hunger which merchants suffer from. You know their habits: by reason
of this craving after corn,[39] whenever they hear that corn is to be
got, they go sailing off to find it, even if they must cross the
Aegean, or the Euxine, or the Sicilian seas. And when they have got as
much as ever they can get, they will not let it out of their sight,
but store it in the vessel on which they sail themselves, and off they
go across the seas again.[40] Whenever they stand in need of money,
they will not discharge their precious cargo,[41] at least not in
haphazard fashion, wherever they may chance to be; but first they find
out where corn is at the highest value, and where the inhabitants will
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: religion of the age; for he has a test, a sure and certain test,
by which to try all institutions, and to measure all men. I say,
he may do this, but this is not the chief business for which he
is qualified. The great work to which he is called is not that
of judgment. Like the Prince of Peace, he may say, if I judge, I
judge righteous judgment; still mainly, like him, he may say,
this is not his work. The man who has thoroughly embraced the
principles of justice, love, and liberty, like the true preacher
of Christianity, is less anxious to reproach the world of its
sins, than to win it to repentance. His great work on earth is
to exemplify, and to illustrate, and to ingraft those principles
My Bondage and My Freedom |
