| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Apology by Plato: him, or drive him into exile, or deprive him of civil rights; and he may
imagine, and others may imagine, that he is inflicting a great injury upon
him: but there I do not agree. For the evil of doing as he is doing--the
evil of unjustly taking away the life of another--is greater far.
And now, Athenians, I am not going to argue for my own sake, as you may
think, but for yours, that you may not sin against the God by condemning
me, who am his gift to you. For if you kill me you will not easily find a
successor to me, who, if I may use such a ludicrous figure of speech, am a
sort of gadfly, given to the state by God; and the state is a great and
noble steed who is tardy in his motions owing to his very size, and
requires to be stirred into life. I am that gadfly which God has attached
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: come together under his wise chairmanship.
Though it was invariably held in check by his vigorous
common-sense, there was in Mr. Lincoln's nature a strong vein of
poetry and mysticism. That morning he told his cabinet a strange
story of a dream that he had had the night before--a dream which
he said came to him before great events. He had dreamed it before
the battles of Antietam, Murfreesboro, Gettysburg and Vicksburg.
This time it must foretell a victory by Sherman over Johnston's
army, news of which was hourly expected, for he knew of no other
important event likely to occur. The members of the cabinet were
deeply impressed; but General Grant, who had come to Washington
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde: and turned the corner; but no sooner had he done so, than, with a
piteous wail of terror, he fell back, and hid his blanched face in
his long, bony hands. Right in front of him was standing a
horrible spectre, motionless as a carven image, and monstrous as a
madman's dream! Its head was bald and burnished; its face round,
and fat, and white; and hideous laughter seemed to have writhed its
features into an eternal grin. From the eyes streamed rays of
scarlet light, the mouth was a wide well of fire, and a hideous
garment, like to his own, swathed with its silent snows the Titan
form. On its breast was a placard with strange writing in antique
characters, some scroll of shame it seemed, some record of wild
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