| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: and the life she leads would give her no pleasure at all if it were
not for the amusement she gets out of her books. Come, don't worry
yourself; she loves nobody but you. You ought to be very glad that she
goes into these enthusiasms for the corsairs of Byron and the heroes
of Walter Scott and your own Germans, Egmont, Goethe, Werther,
Schiller, and all the other 'ers.'"
"Well, madame, what do you say to that?" asked Dumay, respectfully,
alarmed at Madame Mignon's silence.
"Modeste is not only inclined to love, but she loves some man,"
answered the mother, obstinately.
"Madame, my life is at stake, and you must allow me--not for my sake,
Modeste Mignon |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau: propose to make an effort; I have never countenanced an
effort, and never mean to countenance an effort, to disturb
the arrangement as originally made, by which various States
came into the Union." Still thinking of the sanction which
the Constitution gives to slavery, he says, "Because it was
part of the original compact--let it stand."
Notwithstanding his special acuteness and ability, he is
unable to take a fact out of its merely political relations,
and behold it as it lies absolutely to be disposed of by the
intellect--what, for instance, it behooves a man to do here
in American today with regard to slavery--but ventures, or
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Young Forester by Zane Grey: "Ken, you're going to ring me in next summer!"
II. THE MAN ON THE TRAIN
Travelling was a new experience to me, and on the first night after I left
home I lay awake until we reached Altoona. We rolled out of smoky Pittsburg
at dawn, and from then on the only bitter drop in my cup of bliss was that
the train went so fast I could not see everything out of my window.
Four days to ride! The great Mississippi to cross, the plains, the Rocky
Mountains, then the Arizona plateaus-a long, long journey with a wild pine
forest at the end! I wondered what more any young fellow could have wished.
With my face glued to the car window I watched the level country speed by.
There appeared to be one continuous procession of well-cultivated farms,
The Young Forester |
