| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death by Patrick Henry: which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if
its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other
possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of
the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir,
she has none. They are meant for us: they can be meant for no other.
They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British
ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them?
Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years.
Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the
subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain.
Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: persistent observer of human chemistry possessed that antique
science of the Mages, that is to say, knowledge of the elements
in fusion, the causes of life, life antecedent to life, and what
it must be in its incubation or ever it IS, it must be confessed
that, unfortunately, everything in him was purely personal.
Isolated during his life by his egoism, that egoism is now
suicidal of his glory. On his tomb there is no proclaiming statue
to repeat to posterity the mysteries which genius seeks out at
its own cost.
But perhaps Desplein's genius was answerable for his beliefs, and
for that reason mortal. To him the terrestrial atmosphere was a
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Bab:A Sub-Deb, Mary Roberts Rinehart by Mary Roberts Rinehart: a wire hairpin, for one thing. And he took the manuscript with him,
which he'd hardly have done if he meant to drown himself. Or even
if, as we fear, he had no Pockets. He has smoked a lot of
cigarettes out of a candy box, which I did not supply him, and he
left behind a bath towle that does not, I think, belong to us."
"I should think he would have worn it," said Mrs. Beecher, in a
scornfull tone.
"Here's the bath towle," Mr. Patten went on. "You may recognize the
initials. I don't."
"B. P. A.," said Mrs. Beecher. "Look here, don't they call
that--that fliberty-gibbet next door `Barbara'?"
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