| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: cheerful. I saw the wisdom of keeping away from the ship-yards,
for, if pursued, as I felt certain I should be, Mr. Auld, my "master,"
would naturally seek me there among the calkers. Every door seemed closed
against me. I was in the midst of an ocean of my fellow-men,
and yet a perfect stranger to every one. I was without home,
without acquaintance, without money, without credit, without work,
and without any definite knowledge as to what course to take,
or where to look for succor. In such an extremity, a man had something
besides his new-born freedom to think of. While wandering about the streets
of New York, and lodging at least one night among the barrels on one
of the wharves, I was indeed free--from slavery, but free from
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: parts than the human body has limbs: the ring, the stock, the
crown, the flukes, the palms, the shank. All this, according to
the journalist, is "cast" when a ship arriving at an anchorage is
brought up.
This insistence in using the odious word arises from the fact that
a particularly benighted landsman must imagine the act of anchoring
as a process of throwing something overboard, whereas the anchor
ready for its work is already overboard, and is not thrown over,
but simply allowed to fall. It hangs from the ship's side at the
end of a heavy, projecting timber called the cat-head, in the bight
of a short, thick chain whose end link is suddenly released by a
The Mirror of the Sea |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: he will one day possess.
That often happens, he said.
And what will a man such as he is be likely to do under such circumstances,
especially if he be a citizen of a great city, rich and noble, and a tall
proper youth? Will he not be full of boundless aspirations, and fancy
himself able to manage the affairs of Hellenes and of barbarians, and
having got such notions into his head will he not dilate and elevate
himself in the fulness of vain pomp and senseless pride?
To be sure he will.
Now, when he is in this state of mind, if some one gently comes to him and
tells him that he is a fool and must get understanding, which can only be
The Republic |
