| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: an acknowledged nation on the face of the earth,--acknowledged by
both France and England. There it is my wish to go, and find myself
a people.
"I am aware, now, that I shall have you all against me; but,
before you strike, hear me. During my stay in France, I have
followed up, with intense interest, the history of my people
in America. I have noted the struggle between abolitionist and
colonizationist, and have received some impressions, as a distant
spectator, which could never have occurred to me as a participator.
"I grant that this Liberia may have subserved all sorts of
purposes, by being played off, in the hands of our oppressors,
Uncle Tom's Cabin |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Bucky O'Connor by William MacLeod Raine: stopped, keen eyes fixed on Frank.
"He's as safe as I am, Mike. Is it likely I would take any risks
about a thing of that sort with my old bunkie's tough neck
inviting the hangman?" asked O'Connor quietly.
"Good enough. The kid looks stanch, and, anyhow, if you guarantee
him that's enough for me." He accepted another of the ranger's
cigars, puffed it to a red glow, and leaned back to smile at his
friend. "Glory, but it's good to see ye, Bucky, me bye. You'll
never know how a man's eyes ache to see a straight-up white man
in this land of greasers. It's the God's truth I'm telling ye
when I say that I haven't had a scrimmage with me hands since I
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: any one else's mother, but only his own?
ALCIBIADES: True.
SOCRATES: Ignorance, then, is better for those who are in such a frame of
mind, and have such ideas?
ALCIBIADES: Obviously.
SOCRATES: You acknowledge that for some persons in certain cases the
ignorance of some things is a good and not an evil, as you formerly
supposed?
ALCIBIADES: I do.
SOCRATES: And there is still another case which will also perhaps appear
strange to you, if you will consider it? (The reading is here uncertain.)
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