| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: wanderings. The sun sank lower and lower behind the deer-park
point; the white stair of houses up the glen was wrapped every
moment deeper and deeper in hazy smoke and shade, as the light
faded; the evening fires were lighted one by one; the soft murmur
of the waterfall, and the pleasant laugh of children, and the
splash of homeward oars, came clearer and clearer to the ear at
every stroke: and as we rowed on, arose the recollection of many a
brave and wise friend, whose lot was cast in no such western
paradise, but rather in the infernos of this sinful earth, toiling
even then amid the festering alleys of Bermondsey and Bethnal
Green, to palliate death and misery which they had vainly laboured
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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: Miss Lucretia's window, I was very apt to get well paid for my
music. The reader will see that I now had two friends, both at
important points--Mas' Daniel at the great house, and Miss
Lucretia at home. From Mas' Daniel I got protection from the
bigger boys; and from Miss Lucretia I got bread, by singing when
I was hungry, and sympathy when I was abused by that termagant,
who had the reins of government in the kitchen. For such
friendship I felt deeply grateful, and bitter as are my
recollections of slavery, I love to recall any instances of
kindness, any sunbeams of humane treatment, which found way to my
soul through the iron grating of my house of bondage. Such beams
My Bondage and My Freedom |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Inaugural Address by John F. Kennedy: Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days. . .
nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps
in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.
In your hands, my fellow citizens. . .more than mine. . .will rest the
final success or failure of our course. Since this country was founded,
each generation of Americans has been summoned to give testimony
to its national loyalty. The graves of young Americans who answered
the call to service surround the globe. Now the trumpet summons us again. . .
not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need. . .not as a call to battle. . .
though embattled we are. . .but a call to bear the burden of a long
twilight struggle. . .year in and year out, rejoicing in hope,
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