| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave by Frederick Douglass: lives to remember and mourn over the loss of chil-
dren, the loss of grandchildren, and the loss of great-
grandchildren. They are, in the language of the
slave's poet, Whittier,--
"Gone, gone, sold and gone
To the rice swamp dank and lone,
Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings,
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot: Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.
Footsteps shuffled on the stair.
Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
Spread out in fiery points
Glowed into words, then would be savagely still, 110
'My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
'Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak.
'What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
'I never know what you are thinking. Think.'
I think we are in rats' alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.
The Waste Land |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: support them, as those who demand our charity in the streets.
As to my own part, having turned my thoughts for many years, upon
this important subject, and maturely weighed the several schemes
of our projectors, I have always found them grossly mistaken in
their computation. It is true, a child just dropt from its dam,
may be supported by her milk, for a solar year, with little other
nourishment: at most not above the value of two shillings, which
the mother may certainly get, or the value in scraps, by her
lawful occupation of begging; and it is exactly at one year old
that I propose to provide for them in such a manner, as, instead
of being a charge upon their parents, or the parish, or wanting
A Modest Proposal |
