| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau: they are in humanity, and are not prepared to do justice to
the slave and to Mexico, cost what it may. I quarrel not
with far-off foes, but with those who, neat at home,
co-operate with, and do the bidding of, those far away, and
without whom the latter would be harmless. We are
accustomed to say, that the mass of men are unprepared; but
improvement is slow, because the few are not as materially
wiser or better than the many. It is not so important that
many should be good as you, as that there be some absolute
goodness somewhere; for that will leaven the whole lump.
There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Poems of Goethe, Bowring, Tr. by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: THE POEMS OF GOETHE.
DEDICATION.
The morn arrived; his footstep quickly scared
The gentle sleep that round my senses clung,
And I, awak'ning, from my cottage fared,
And up the mountain side with light heart sprung;
At every step I felt my gaze ensnared
By new-born flow'rs that full of dew-drops hung;
The youthful day awoke with ecstacy,
And all things quicken'd were, to quicken me.
And as I mounted, from the valley rose
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Cavalry General by Xenophon: He must also, as it appears to me, be capable of great physical
endurance;[6] since clearly, if he has to run full tilt against an
armament present, as we picture, in such force that not even our whole
state cares to cope with it, it is plain he must accept whatever fate
is due, where might is right, himself unable to retaliate.
[6] So Jason, "Hell." VI. i. 4.
If, on the contrary, he elect to guard the territory outside the
walls[7] with a number just sufficient to keep a look-out on the
enemy, and to withdraw into safe quarters from a distance whatever
needs protection--a small number, be it observed, is just as capable
of vedette duty, as well able, say, to scan the distant horizon, as a
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