| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Apology by Plato: excuse if he spoke in his native tongue, and after the fashion of his
country:--Am I making an unfair request of you? Never mind the manner,
which may or may not be good; but think only of the truth of my words, and
give heed to that: let the speaker speak truly and the judge decide
justly.
And first, I have to reply to the older charges and to my first accusers,
and then I will go on to the later ones. For of old I have had many
accusers, who have accused me falsely to you during many years; and I am
more afraid of them than of Anytus and his associates, who are dangerous,
too, in their own way. But far more dangerous are the others, who began
when you were children, and took possession of your minds with their
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Iron Puddler by James J. Davis: Although unmarried, I had bought a house, and still had several
thousand dollars of capital. So from time to time when some
friend saw an opportunity to start a business in a small way, I
backed him with a thousand dollars. My security in these cases
was my knowledge of the man's character. Some of these ventures
were in oil leases in which my chance of profits was good and
they ranged from novelty manufacture down to weekly newspapers in
which no great profit was possible. So many of the ventures
thrived, that by the time I was forty I was rated as a prosperous
young man. This gave me a great confidence in myself and in the
institutions of this country. A land where a boy can enter the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: observed Endicott. "We will see how they comport themselves under
their present trials ere we burden them with greater. If, among
the spoil, there be any garments of a more decent fashion, let
them be put upon this May Lord and his Lady, instead of their
glistening vanities. Look to it, some of you.
"And shall not the youth's hair be cut?" asked Peter Palfrey,
looking with abhorrence at the lovelock and long glossy curls of
the young man.
"Crop it forthwith, and that in the true pumpkin-shell fashion,"
answered the captain. "Then bring them along with us, but more
gently than their fellows. There be qualities in the youth, which
Twice Told Tales |
