| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Moon-Face and Other Stories by Jack London: October 1st. If you do not, in order to show that we are in earnest we shall
on that date kill a man on East Thirty-ninth Street. He will be a workingman.
This man you do not know; nor do we. You represent a force in modern society;
we also represent a force--a new force. Without anger or malice, we have
closed in battle. As you will readily discern, we are simply a business
proposition. You are the upper, and we the nether, millstone; this man's life
shall be ground out between. You may save him if you agree to our conditions
and act in time.
There was once a king cursed with a golden touch. His name we have taken to do
duty as our official seal. Some day, to protect ourselves against competitors,
we shall copyright it.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: things. Sophia (wisdom) is very dark, and appears not to be of native
growth; the meaning is, touching the motion or stream of things. You must
remember that the poets, when they speak of the commencement of any rapid
motion, often use the word esuthe (he rushed); and there was a famous
Lacedaemonian who was named Sous (Rush), for by this word the
Lacedaemonians signify rapid motion, and the touching (epaphe) of motion is
expressed by sophia, for all things are supposed to be in motion. Good
(agathon) is the name which is given to the admirable (agasto) in nature;
for, although all things move, still there are degrees of motion; some are
swifter, some slower; but there are some things which are admirable for
their swiftness, and this admirable part of nature is called agathon.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: to a flight of winding steps leading from the store to the room
overhead.
Lincoln picked up the saddle-bags, went upstairs, set them down
on the floor, and reappeared a moment later, beaming with
pleasure. "Well, Speed," he exclaimed, "I am moved!" It is seldom
that heartier, truer friendships come to a man than came to
Lincoln in the course of his life. On the other hand, no one ever
deserved better of his fellow-men than he did; and it is pleasant
to know that such brotherly aid as Butler and Speed were able to
give him, offered in all sincerity and accepted in a spirit that
left no sense of galling obligation on either side, helped the
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