| 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: slavery, it will be because they are indifferent to slavery,
or because there is but little slavery left to be abolished
by their vote. They will then be the only slaves. Only his
vote can hasten the abolition of slavery who asserts his own
freedom by his vote.
I hear of a convention to be held at Baltimore, or
elsewhere, for the selection of a candidate for the
Presidency, made up chiefly of editors, and men who are
politicians by profession; but I think, what is it to any
independent, intelligent, and respectable man what decision
they may come to? Shall we not have the advantage of this
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Four Arthurian Romances by Chretien DeTroyes: Alexander is served and loved; and he who does not serve him for
love must needs do so from fear. Through the effect of one or
the other of these two motives he has all the land within his
power. But he whom they call Death spares neither the strong man
nor the weak, but kills and slays them all. So Alexander had to
die; for a disease caught him in its grip from which he could
obtain no relief. But before he was surprised by death he
summoned his son and said to him: "Fair son Cliges, thou canst
never know that prowess and valour are thine unless thou go first
to make test of them with the Bretons and French at King Arthur's
court. If adventure takes thee thither, so conduct and demean
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac: institutions would see poverty and dullness, old age lying down
to die, and joyous youth condemned to drudgery. It is the ugliest
quarter of Paris, and, it may be added, the least known. But,
before all things, the Rue Nueve-Sainte-Genevieve is like a
bronze frame for a picture for which the mind cannot be too well
prepared by the contemplation of sad hues and sober images. Even
so, step by step the daylight decreases, and the cicerone's
droning voice grows hollower as the traveler descends into the
Catacombs. The comparison holds good! Who shall say which is more
ghastly, the sight of the bleached skulls or of dried-up human
hearts?
Father Goriot |
