| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: in the ideal, that not to undertake a thing at all seems better
than to undertake and come short.
Still St. Clare was, in many respects, another man. He read
his little Eva's Bible seriously and honestly; he thought more
soberly and practically of his relations to his servants,--enough
to make him extremely dissatisfied with both his past and present
course; and one thing he did, soon after his return to New Orleans,
and that was to commence the legal steps necessary to Tom's
emancipation, which was to be perfected as soon as he could get
through the necessary formalities. Meantime, he attached himself
to Tom more and more, every day. In all the wide world, there was
 Uncle Tom's Cabin |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Old Indian Legends by Zitkala-Sa: and hurried away from the ravine. Soon he came to a teepee from
whence loud wailing voices broke. It was the teepee of the stolen
baby and the mourners were its heart-broken parents.
When gallant Manstin returned the child to the eager arms of
the mother there came a sudden terror into the eyes of both the
Dakotas. They feared lest it was Double-Face come in a new guise
to torture them. The rabbit understood their fear and said: "I am
Manstin, the kind-hearted,--Manstin, the noted huntsman. I am your
friend. Do not fear."
That night a strange thing happened. While the father and
mother slept, Manstin took the wee baby. With his feet placed
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Poems by T. S. Eliot: So closely! I myself can hardly understand.
We must leave it now to fate.
You will write, at any rate.
Perhaps it is not too late.
I shall sit here, serving tea to friends."
And I must borrow every changing shape
To find expression ... dance, dance
Like a dancing bear,
Cry like a parrot, chatter like an ape.
Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance--
Well! and what if she should die some afternoon,
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