| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift: profoundest peace after a full meal; and that civil broils arise
among them when it happens for one great bone to be seized on by
some leading dog, who either divides it among the few, and then it
falls to an oligarchy, or keeps it to himself, and then it runs up
to a tyranny. The same reasoning also holds place among them in
those dissensions we behold upon a turgescency in any of their
females. For the right of possession lying in common (it being
impossible to establish a property in so delicate a case),
jealousies and suspicions do so abound, that the whole commonwealth
of that street is reduced to a manifest state of war, of every
citizen against every citizen, till some one of more courage,
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: But perhaps he was merely an innocent American who at school had studied,
for instance, Eggleston's history; thoughtless--but by no means
harmless; for his school-taught "slant" against England, in the days we
were living through then, amounted to a "slant" for Germany. He would be
sorry if Germany beat France, but not if she beat England--when France
and England were joined in keeping the wolf not only from their door but
from ours! It matters not in the least that they were fighting our
battle, not because they wanted to, but because they couldn't help it:
they were fighting it just the same. That they were compelled doesn't
matter, any more than it matters that in going to war when Belgium was
invaded, England's duty and England's self-interest happened to coincide.
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott: without influencing my reason or conduct."
"I profess, my good lady," replied I, "that had any one but you
made such a declaration, I should have thought it as capricious
as that of the clergyman, who, without vindicating his false
reading, preferred, from habit's sake, his old Mumpsimus to the
modern Sumpsimus."
"Well," answered my aunt, "I must explain my inconsistency in
this particular by comparing it to another. I am, as you know, a
piece of that old-fashioned thing called a Jacobite; but I am so
in sentiment and feeling only, for a more loyal subject never
joined in prayers for the health and wealth of George the Fourth,
|
