| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: W.A. - That is true, He might strike me dead; and I ought to expect
it, for I have been a wicked wretch, that is true; but God is
merciful, and does not deal with us as we deserve.
WIFE. - But then do you not tell God thankee for that too?
W. A. - No, indeed, I have not thanked God for His mercy, any more
than I have feared God from His power.
WIFE. - Then you God no God; me no think, believe He be such one,
great much power, strong: no makee kill you, though you make Him
much angry.
W.A. - What, will my wicked life hinder you from believing in God?
What a dreadful creature am I! and what a sad truth is it, that the
Robinson Crusoe |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: which is now coming into existence, by notions derived from a
state of society which no longer exists; for as these states of
society are exceedingly different in their structure, they cannot
be submitted to a just or fair comparison. It would be scarcely
more reasonable to require of our own contemporaries the peculiar
virtues which originated in the social condition of their
forefathers, since that social condition is itself fallen, and
has drawn into one promiscuous ruin the good and evil which
belonged to it.
But as yet these things are imperfectly understood. I find
that a great number of my contemporaries undertake to make a
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri: 'Sperent in te,' in the high Theody
He sayeth, 'those who know thy name;' and who
Knoweth it not, if he my faith possess?
Thou didst instil me, then, with his instilling
In the Epistle, so that I am full,
And upon others rain again your rain."
While I was speaking, in the living bosom
Of that combustion quivered an effulgence,
Sudden and frequent, in the guise of lightning;
Then breathed: "The love wherewith I am inflamed
Towards the virtue still which followed me
The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) |
