| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: immutable and self-existent Being, for whom the Greek sages sought, and
did not altogether seek in vain, has gathered together all things both
in heaven and in earth in one inspiring and creating Logos, who is both
God and Man?
Be this as it may, we find that from the time of Philo, the deepest
thought of the heathen world began to flow in a theologic channel. All
the great heathen thinkers henceforth are theologians. In the times of
Nero, for instance, Epictetus the slave, the regenerator of Stoicism, is
no mere speculator concerning entities and quiddities, correct or
incorrect. He is a slave searching for the secret of freedom, and
finding that it consists in escaping not from a master, but from self:
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death by Patrick Henry: Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves
to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our
petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and
darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and
reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that
force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves,
sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to
which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if
its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other
possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of
the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: hands.
"Do you love me, madame?" he asked at length, raising his head,
and turning a face full of resolution upon her. "Say it
straight out; Yes or No!"
His direct question dismayed the Duchess more than a threat of
suicide could have done; indeed, the woman of the nineteenth
century is not to be frightened by that stale stratagem, the
sword has ceased to be part of the masculine costume. But in the
effect of eyelids and lashes, in the contraction of the gaze, in
the twitching of the lips, is there not some influence that
communicates the terror which they express with such vivid
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