| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: To which I answered:
"No sir; I never carry my free papers to sea with me."
"But you have something to show that you are a freeman, haven't you?"
"Yes, sir," I answered; "I have a paper with the American Eagle on it,
and that will carry me around the world."
With this I drew from my deep sailor's pocket my seaman's protection,
as before described. The merest glance at the paper satisfied him,
and he took my fare and went on about his business. This moment
of time was one of the most anxious I ever experienced.
Had the conductor looked closely at the paper, he could not
have failed to discover that it called for a very different-looking
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: his departure for Greece and of which he lay ill so long in Naples.
He was still, indeed, doing penance for it.
I remember vividly another evening, when something led us to talk
of Dante's veneration for Virgil. Cleric went through canto
after canto of the `Commedia,' repeating the discourse between
Dante and his `sweet teacher,' while his cigarette burned itself
out unheeded between his long fingers. I can hear him now,
speaking the lines of the poet Statius, who spoke for Dante:
`I was famous on earth with the name which endures longest
and honours most. The seeds of my ardour were the sparks from
that divine flame whereby more than a thousand have kindled;
My Antonia |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy: deprived of for so long, and was about to say goodbye and go when
the daughter of the house came up to him with a determined look
and said, with a blush, "You asked about my children. Would you
like to see them?"
"She thinks that everybody wants to see her children," said her
mother, smiling at her daughter's winning tactlessness. "The
Prince is not at all interested."
"On the contrary, I am very much interested," said Nekhludoff,
touched by this overflowing, happy mother-love. "Please let me
see them."
"She's taking the Prince to see her babies," the General shouted,
Resurrection |
