| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas: D'Artagnan pouted out his lower lip in a most extraordinary
manner.
"I reply, my lord, 'tis but little, as certainly I shall not
go alone."
"I suppose not. Monsieur du Vallon, that worthy gentleman,
for, with the exception of yourself, Monsieur d'Artagnan,
there's not a man in France that I esteem and love so much
as him ---- "
"Then, my lord," replied D'Artagnan, pointing to the purse
which Mazarin still held, "if you love and esteem him so
much, you -- understand me?"
Twenty Years After |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: goodwill, are worth a great deal more to them than your superior
person's virtue and wisdom, coupled with animosity. What it comes to,
therefore, is that a state founded upon such institutions will not be
the best state;[17] but, given a democracy, these are the right means
to procure its preservation. The People, it must be borne in mind,
does not demand that the city should be well governed and itself a
slave. It desires to be free and to be master.[18] As to bad
legislation it does not concern itself about that.[19] In fact, what
you believe to be bad legislation is the very source of the People's
strength and freedom. But if you seek for good legislation, in the
first place you will see the cleverest members of the community laying
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Common Sense by Thomas Paine: older and wiser than himself, I forbid this or that act of yours to be law.
But in this place I decline this sort of reply, though I will never cease
to expose the absurdity of it, and only answer, that England being the King's
residence, and America not so, makes quite another case. The king's negative
HERE is ten times more dangerous and fatal than it can be in England,
for THERE he will scarcely refuse his consent to a bill for putting England
into as strong a state of defense as possible, and in America he would never
suffer such a bill to be passed.
America is only a secondary object in the system of British politics,
England consults the good of THIS country, no farther than it answers
her OWN purpose. Wherefore, her own interest leads her to suppress
Common Sense |
