| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: about us then, what it must have been like for Americans who were in
England and France at that time. No: the average person in great trouble
cannot rise above the trouble and survey the truth and be just. In
English eyes our Government--and therefore all of us--failed in 1914--
1915--1916--failed again and again--insulted the cause of humanity when
we said through our President in 1916, the third summer of the war, that
we were not concerned with either the causes or the aims of that
conflict. How could they remember Hoover, or Robert Bacon, or Leonard
Wood, or Theodore Roosevelt then, any more than we could remember John
Bright, or Richard Cobden, or the Manchester men in the days when the
Alabama was sinking the merchant vessels of the Union?
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Scarecrow of Oz by L. Frank Baum: fast to the hands of Betsy and Dorothy. Cap'n Bill had no
one to help him feel at ease, so the old sailor sat
stiffly on the edge of his chair and said:
"Yes, ma'am," or "No, ma'am," when he was spoken to,
and was greatly embarrassed by so much splendor.
The Scarecrow had lived so much in palaces that he felt
quite at home, and he chatted to Glinda and the Oz girls
in a merry, light-hearted way. He told all about his
adventures in Jinxland, and at the Great Waterfall, and
on the journey hither -- most of which his hearers knew
already -- and then he asked Dorothy and Betsy what had
The Scarecrow of Oz |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: carry into service some of those manly habits which independence
and equality engender. Having once selected a hard way of life,
they do not seek to escape from it by indirect means; and they
have sufficient respect for themselves, not to refuse to their
master that obedience which they have freely promised. On their
part, masters require nothing of their servants but the faithful
and rigorous performance of the covenant: they do not ask for
marks of respect, they do not claim their love or devoted
attachment; it is enough that, as servants, they are exact and
honest. It would not then be true to assert that, in democratic
society, the relation of servants and masters is disorganized: it
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