| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Forged Coupon by Leo Tolstoy: number of convicts were confined together; the
striking of the prison clock; the steps of the sentry
in the passage; but at the same time he saw HER
with that kindly face which conquered his heart
the very first time he met her in the street, with
that thin, strongly-marked neck, and he heard her
soft, lisping, pathetic voice: "To destroy some-
body's soul . . . and, worst of all, your own.
. . . How can you? . . ."
After a while her voice would die away, and
then black faces would appear. They would ap-
The Forged Coupon |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Rivers to the Sea by Sara Teasdale: Under the stars he flew,
Keen as pain was his call to follow
Over the world to you.
Love in my heart is a cry forever
Lost as the swallow's flight,
Seeking for you and never, never
Stilled by the stars at night.
THE INDIA WHARF
HERE in the velvet stillness
The wide sown fields fall to the faint horizon,
Sleeping in starlight. . . .
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: thing could happen in _Maryland_. I can only say--believe it or
not--that I have said nothing but the literal truth, gainsay it
who may.
I speak advisedly when I say this,--that killing a slave, or any
colored person, in Talbot county, Maryland, is not treated as a
crime, either by the courts or the community. Mr. Thomas Lanman,
ship carpenter, of St. Michael's, killed two slaves, one of whom
he butchered with a hatchet, by knocking his brains out. He used
to boast of the commission of the awful and bloody deed. I have
heard him do so, laughingly, saying, among other things, that he
was the only benefactor of his country in the company, and that
My Bondage and My Freedom |
