| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Sir John Mandeville: He hath also a full fair palace and a noble at the city of Nyse,
where that he dwelleth, when him best liketh; but the air is not so
attempre, as it is at the city of Susa.
And ye shall understand, that in all his country nor in the
countries there all about, men eat not but once in the day, as they
do in the court of the great Chan. And so they eat every day in
his court, more than 30,000 persons, without goers and comers. But
the 30,000 persons of his country, ne of the country of the great
Chan, ne spend not so much good as do 12,000 of our country.
This Emperor Prester John hath evermore seven kings with him to
serve him, and they depart their service by certain months. And
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: their class: incessant labor, sleeping in kennel-like rooms,
eating rank pork and molasses, drinking--God and the distillers
only know what; with an occasional night in jail, to atone for
some drunken excess. Is that all of their lives?--of the
portion given to them and these their duplicates swarming the
streets to-day?--nothing beneath?--all? So many a political
reformer will tell you,--and many a private reformer, too, who
has gone among them with a heart tender with Christ's charity,
and come out outraged, hardened.
One rainy night, about eleven o'clock, a crowd of half-clothed
women stopped outside of the cellar-door. They were going home
Life in the Iron-Mills |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Youth by Joseph Conrad: The sea was polished, was blue, was pellucid, was spark-
ling like a precious stone, extending on all sides, all
round to the horizon--as if the whole terrestrial globe
had been one jewel, one colossal sapphire, a single gem
fashioned into a planet. And on the luster of the great
calm waters the Judea glided imperceptibly, enveloped
in languid and unclean vapors, in a lazy cloud that
drifted to leeward, light and slow: a pestiferous cloud
defiling the splendor of sea and sky.
"All this time of course we saw no fire. The cargo
smoldered at the bottom somewhere. Once Mahon, as
Youth |
