| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Letters from England by Elizabeth Davis Bancroft: made our DEBUT in London on the first day of November (the suicidal
month you know) in the midst of an orange-colored fog, in which you
could not see your hand before you. The prospect for the winter
seemed, I must say, rather "triste," but the next day the fog
cleared off, people came constantly to see us, and we had agreeable
invitations for every day, and London put on a new aspect. Out
first dinner was at Lord Palmerston's, where we met what the
newspapers call a distinguished circle. The Marquis of Lansdowne,
Lord and Lady John Russell, Marquis and Marchioness of Clanricarde
(Canning's daughter), Earl and Countess Grey, Sir George and Lady
Grey, etc., etc. I was taken out by Lord Palmerston, with Lord Grey
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Common Sense by Thomas Paine: and justice be extirpated the earth, or have only a casual existence
were we callous to the touches of affection. The robber, and the murderer,
would often escape unpunished, did not the injuries which our tempers sustain,
provoke us into justice.
O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny,
but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun with
oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia, and Africa,
have long expelled her--Europe regards her like a stranger, and England
hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare
in time an asylum for mankind.
OF THE PRESENT _ABILITY_ OF _AMERICA_, WITH SOME MISCELLANEOUS _REFLECTIONS_
Common Sense |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: kings, "people-eating," were the constant and proper title of all
monarchs; and the enlargement of a king's dominion meant the same
thing as the increase of a private man's estate! Kings who think
so, however powerful, can no more be the true kings of the nation
than gadflies are the kings of a horse; they suck it, and may drive
it wild, but do not guide it. They, and their courts, and their
armies are, if one could see clearly, only a large species of marsh
mosquito, with bayonet proboscis and melodious, band-mastered
trumpeting, in the summer air; the twilight being, perhaps,
sometimes fairer, but hardly more wholesome, for its glittering
mists of midge companies. The true kings, meanwhile, rule quietly,
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