| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: "Poor Cassy!" said Emmeline, "don't feel so! If the Lord
gives us liberty, perhaps he'll give you back your daughter; at
any rate, I'll be like a daughter to you. I know I'll never see
my poor old mother again! I shall love you, Cassy, whether you love
me or not!"
The gentle, child-like spirit conquered. Cassy sat down by her,
put her arm round her neck, stroked her soft, brown hair; and
Emmeline then wondered at the beauty of her magnificent eyes, now
soft with tears.
"O, Em!" said Cassy, "I've hungered for my children, and
thirsted for them, and my eyes fail with longing for them!
Uncle Tom's Cabin |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Walking by Henry David Thoreau: Shanghai and Cochin- China grandeur. Those GRA-A-ATE THOUGHTS,
those GRA-A-ATE men you hear of!
We hug the earth--how rarely we mount! Methinks we might elevate
ourselves a little more. We might climb a tree, at least. I found
my account in climbing a tree once. It was a tall white pine, on
the top of a hill; and though I got well pitched, I was well paid
for it, for I discovered new mountains in the horizon which I had
never seen before--so much more of the earth and the heavens. I
might have walked about the foot of the tree for threescore years
and ten, and yet I certainly should never have seen them. But,
above all, I discovered around me--it was near the end of
Walking |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson: Come to me, ye heavy laden, sin defiled and care opprest,
In your father's quiet mansions, soon to prove a welcome guest.
But an hour you bear your trial, sin and suffer, bleed and die;
But an hour you toil and combat here in day's inspiring eye.
See the feet of your deliverer; lo, the hour of freedom nigh.
I NOW, O FRIEND, WHOM NOISELESSLY THE SNOWS
I NOW, O friend, whom noiselessly the snows
Settle around, and whose small chamber grows
Dusk as the sloping window takes its load:
* * * * *
The kindly hill, as to complete our hap,
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