| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: I speak from experience; for it was not so very long ago that, in
the north of Devon, I found sermons, not indeed in stones, but in a
creature reputed among the most worthless of sea-vermin. I had
been lounging about all the morning on the little pier, waiting,
with the rest of the village, for a trawling breeze which would not
come. Two o'clock was past, and still the red mainsails of the
skiffs hung motionless, and their images quivered head downwards in
the glassy swell,
"As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean."
It was neap-tide, too, and therefore nothing could be done among
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Time Machine by H. G. Wells: the speaker's white, sincere face in the bright circle of the
little lamp, nor hear the intonation of his voice. You cannot
know how his expression followed the turns of his story! Most of
us hearers were in shadow, for the candles in the smoking-room
had not been lighted, and only the face of the Journalist and the
legs of the Silent Man from the knees downward were illuminated.
At first we glanced now and again at each other. After a time we
ceased to do that, and looked only at the Time Traveller's face.
III
`I told some of you last Thursday of the principles of the
Time Machine, and showed you the actual thing itself, incomplete
The Time Machine |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: fabled vine of Jack's bean. No man was more active than he, in
revivals. He would go many miles to assist in carrying them on,
and in getting outsiders interested in religion. His house being
<154>one of the holiest, if not the happiest in St. Michael's,
became the "preachers' home." These preachers evidently liked to
share Master Thomas's hospitality; for while he _starved us_, he
_stuffed_ them. Three or four of these ambassadors of the
gospel--according to slavery--have been there at a time; all
living on the fat of the land, while we, in the kitchen, were
nearly starving. Not often did we get a smile of recognition
from these holy men. They seemed almost as unconcerned about our
My Bondage and My Freedom |
