| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: to action than thought; yet here I often nailed a newspaper to the post
near my bellows, and read while I was performing the up and down motion
of the heavy beam by which the bellows was inflated and discharged.
It was the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties, and I look back to it now,
after so many years, with some complacency and a little wonder that I could
have been so earnest and persevering in any pursuit other than for my
daily bread. I certainly saw nothing in the conduct of those around
to inspire me with such interest: they were all devoted exclusively
to what their hands found to do. I am glad to be able to say that,
during my engagement in this foundry, no complaint was ever made against
me that I did not do my work, and do it well. The bellows which I worked
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: till his turn comes, and then, whack goes one of the batter
puddings against the big one's ribs, and bang goes the other into
the big one's face, and, staggering, shuffling, slipping, tripping,
collapsing, sprawling, down goes the big one in a miscellaneous
bundle. - If my young friend, whose excellent article I have
referred to, could only introduce the manly art of self-defence
among the clergy, I am satisfied that we should have better sermons
and an infinitely less quarrelsome church-militant. A bout with
the gloves would let off the ill-nature, and cure the indigestion,
which, united, have embroiled their subject in a bitter
controversy. We should then often hear that a point of difference
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Russia in 1919 by Arthur Ransome: than the men from the country.
The most noticeable thing in Petrograd to anyone returning
after six months' absence is the complete disappearance of
armed men. The town seems to have returned to a perfectly
peaceable condition in the sense that the need for
revolutionary patrols has gone. Soldiers walking about no
longer carry their rifles, and the picturesque figures of
the revolution who wore belts of machine-gun cartridges
slung about their persons have gone.
The second noticeable thing, especially in the Nevsky, which
was once crowded with people too fashionably dressed, is
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