| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens: there is an image of death and ruin,--of something that has been
bright, and is but dull, cold, dreary dust,--with which our nature
forces us to sympathise. How much more sad the crumbled embers of
a home: the casting down of that great altar, where the worst among
us sometimes perform the worship of the heart; and where the best
have offered up such sacrifices, and done such deeds of heroism,
as, chronicled, would put the proudest temples of old Time, with
all their vaunting annals, to the blush!
He roused himself from a long train of meditation, and walked
slowly round the house. It was by this time almost dark.
He had nearly made the circuit of the building, when he uttered a
Barnaby Rudge |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: sterling; some nineteen pounds of it in silver: all of which we
turned again into the chest.
"And what do you think of that?" I asked.
"Mr. Dodd," he replied, "you see something of the rumness of
this job, but not the whole. The specie bothers you, but what
gets me is the papers. Are you aware that the master of a ship
has charge of all the cash in hand, pays the men advances,
receives freight and passage money, and runs up bills in every
port? All this he does as the owner's confidential agent, and
his integrity is proved by his receipted bills. I tell you, the
captain of a ship is more likely to forget his pants than these
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A treatise on Good Works by Dr. Martin Luther: has to do with temporal and eternal possessions.
XV. A prince must also be very wise and not at all times
undertake to enforce his own will, although he may have the
authority and the very best cause. For it is a far nobler virtue
to endure wrong to one's authority than to risk property and
person, if it is advantageous to the subjects; since worldly
rights attach only to temporal goods.
Hence, it is a very foolish saying: I have a right to it,
therefore I will take it by storm and keep it, although all sorts
of misfortune may come to others thereby. So we read of the
Emperor Octavianus, that he did not wish to make war, however
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