| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A treatise on Good Works by Dr. Martin Luther: and thus Christ is forgotten, while we fare like the man in II.
Kings vii: we see our riches but do not enjoy them. Of which the
Preacher also says, "This is a great evil, when God giveth a man
riches, and giveth him not power to enjoy them." So we look on
at unnumbered masses and do not know whether the mass be a
testament, or what it be, just as if it were any other common
good work by itself. O God, how exceeding blind we are! But where
this is rightly preached, it is necessary that it be diligently
heard, grasped, retained, often thought of, and that the faith
be thus strengthened against all the temptation of sin, whether
past, or present, or to come.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Legend of Montrose by Walter Scott: a considerable space farther, when the deep-mouthed baying of a
hound was heard coming down the wind, as if opening on the scent
of its prey.
"Black hound," said Ranald, "whose throat never boded good to a
Child of the Mist, ill fortune to her who littered thee! hast
thou already found our trace? But thou art too late, swart hound
of darkness, and the deer has gained the herd."
So saying, he whistled very softly, and was answered in a tone
equally low from the top of a pass, up which they had for some
time been ascending. Mending their pace, they reached the top,
where the moon, which had now risen bright and clear, showed to
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: questions in this book. In most books, the I, or first person, is
omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism,
is the main difference. We commonly do not remember that it is,
after all, always the first person that is speaking. I should not
talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as
well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness
of my experience. Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer,
first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not
merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account as
he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has
lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me. Perhaps
Walden |
