| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Fantastic Fables by Ambrose Bierce: gift in trust for my fellow-men. I will take you along with me.
Just get behind me and push."
The Good Government
"WHAT a happy land you are!" said a Republican Form of Government
to a Sovereign State. "Be good enough to lie still while I walk
upon you, singing the praises of universal suffrage and descanting
upon the blessings of civil and religious liberty. In the meantime
you can relieve your feelings by cursing the one-man power and the
effete monarchies of Europe."
"My public servants have been fools and rogues from the date of
your accession to power," replied the State; "my legislative
Fantastic Fables |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Walking by Henry David Thoreau: dialect. The names of men are, of course, as cheap and
meaningless as BOSE and TRAY, the names of dogs.
Methinks it would be some advantage to philosophy if men were
named merely in the gross, as they are known. It would be
necessary only to know the genus and perhaps the race or variety,
to know the individual. We are not prepared to believe that every
private soldier in a Roman army had a name of his own--because we
have not supposed that he had a character of his own.
At present our only true names are nicknames. I knew a boy who,
from his peculiar energy, was called "Buster" by his playmates,
and this rightly supplanted his Christian name. Some travelers
Walking |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Cromwell by William Shakespeare: Here's a discharge for your prisoner,
To see him executed presently.--
My Lord, you hear the tenor of your life.
CROMWELL.
I do embrace it, welcome my last date,
And of this glistering world I take last leave:
And, noble Lords, I take my leave of you.--
As willingly I go to meet with death,
As Gardiner did pronounce it with his breath:
From treason is my heart as white as snow,
My death only procured by my foe.
|
