| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Inaugural Address by John F. Kennedy: 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,
patient in tribulation. . .a struggle against the common enemies of man:
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: sweeping sharply through the dry branches. As he approached a
little nearer, he thought he saw something white, hanging in the
midst of the tree: he paused, and ceased whistling but, on
looking more narrowly, perceived that it was a place where the
tree had been scathed by lightning, and the white wood laid bare.
Suddenly he heard a groan--his teeth chattered, and his knees
smote against the saddle: it was but the rubbing of one huge
bough upon another, as they were swayed about by the breeze. He
passed the tree in safety, but new perils lay before him.
About two hundred yards from the tree, a small brook crossed
the road, and ran into a marshy and thickly-wooded glen, known by
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: through their lives in a sort of coarse comfort, like petted
animals, without ever realising that they are probably thinking
other people's thoughts, living by other people's standards,
wearing practically what one may call other people's second-hand
clothes, and never being themselves for a single moment. 'He who
would be free,' says a fine thinker, 'must not conform.' And
authority, by bribing people to conform, produces a very gross kind
of over-fed barbarism amongst us.
With authority, punishment will pass away. This will be a great
gain - a gain, in fact, of incalculable value. As one reads
history, not in the expurgated editions written for school-boys and
|
