| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin: our discredit. These two friends were William Coleman and Robert Grace.
I told them I could not propose a separation while any prospect
remain'd of the Merediths' fulfilling their part of our agreement,
because I thought myself under great obligations to them for what they
had done, and would do if they could; but, if they finally fail'd
in their performance, and our partnership must be dissolv'd, I should
then think myself at liberty to accept the assistance of my friends.
Thus the matter rested for some time, when I said to my partner,
"Perhaps your father is dissatisfied at the part you have undertaken
in this affair of ours, and is unwilling to advance for you and
me what he would for you alone. If that is the case, tell me,
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Emma McChesney & Co. by Edna Ferber: your old-time territory. I was busy up in my department the
morning he came in. I had my head in a rack of coats, and a
henny customer waiting. But I sensed something stirring, and I
stuck my head out of the coat-rack in which I was fumbling. The
department was aflutter like a poultry-yard. Every woman in it,
from the little new Swede stock-girl to Gladys Hemingway, who is
only working to wear out her old clothes, was standing with her
face toward the elevator, and on her face a look that would make
the ordinary door-mat marked `Welcome' seem like an insult. I
kind of smoothed my back hair, because I knew that only one thing
could bring that look into a woman's face. And down the aisle
Emma McChesney & Co. |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: the first, when going forth on their destined journey they were attended on
their way by the state and by their friends; the tribute of words remains
to be given to them, as is meet and by law ordained. For noble words are a
memorial and a crown of noble actions, which are given to the doers of them
by the hearers. A word is needed which will duly praise the dead and
gently admonish the living, exhorting the brethren and descendants of the
departed to imitate their virtue, and consoling their fathers and mothers
and the survivors, if any, who may chance to be alive of the previous
generation. What sort of a word will this be, and how shall we rightly
begin the praises of these brave men? In their life they rejoiced their
own friends with their valour, and their death they gave in exchange for
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