| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 1 by Alexis de Toqueville: Unlimited Power Of The Majority In The United States, And Its
Consequences
The very essence of democratic government consists in the
absolute sovereignty of the majority; for there is nothing in
democratic States which is capable of resisting it. Most of the
American Constitutions have sought to increase this natural
strength of the majority by artificial means. *a
[Footnote a: We observed, in examining the Federal Constitution,
that the efforts of the legislators of the Union had been
diametrically opposed to the present tendency. The consequence
has been that the Federal Government is more independent in its
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: is in possession of it, even to the forcing of a lock, as Mr.
Venables did, to search for notes in my writing-desk--and all this
is done with a show of equity, because, forsooth, he is responsible
for her maintenance.
"The tender mother cannot _lawfully_ snatch from the gripe of
the gambling spendthrift, or beastly drunkard, unmindful of his
offspring, the fortune which falls to her by chance; or (so flagrant
is the injustice) what she earns by her own exertions. No; he can
rob her with impunity, even to waste publicly on a courtezan; and
the laws of her country--if women have a country--afford her no
protection or redress from the oppressor, unless she have the plea
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Fanny Herself by Edna Ferber: never a thought of the material itself, as a
builder reaches for a brick, or stone, and fits it into
place, smoothly, almost without actually seeing the brick
itself, except as something which will help to make a
finished wall. She rarely prowled the city now. She told
herself she was too tired at night, and on Sundays and
holidays, and I suppose she was. Indeed, she no longer saw
things with her former vision. It was as though her soul
had shriveled in direct proportion to her salary's
expansion. The streets seldom furnished her with a rich
mental meal now. When she met a woman with a child, in the
Fanny Herself |
