| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau: have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused
and perverted before the people can act through it. Witness the
present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals
using the standing government as their tool; for in the outset,
the people would not have consented to this measure.
This American government--what is it but a tradition,
though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself
unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its
integrity? It has not the vitality and force of a single
living man; for a single man can bend it to his will. It is
a sort of wooden gun to the people themselves. But it is
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Copy-Cat & Other Stories by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: tent ever had a sister? Has she a sister now?"
"No, she never had a sister, and she has none
now," declared the rector, emphatically. "I knew
all her family. What in the world ails the child?"
"She said her big sister Solly, Edward, and the
very name is so inane. If she hasn't any big sister
Solly, what are we going to do?"
"Why, the child must simply lie," said the rector.
"But, Edward, I don't think she knows she lies.
You may laugh, but I think she is quite sure that
she has a big sister Solly, and that this is her dress.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Poems by T. S. Eliot: The red-eyed scavengers are creeping
From Kentish Town and Golder's Green;
Where are the eagles and the trumpets?
Buried beneath some snow-deep Alps.
Over buttered scones and crumpets
Weeping, weeping multitudes
Droop in a hundred A.B.C.'s
["ABC's" signifes endemic teashops, found in all parts of
London. The initials signify "Aerated Bread Company,
Limited."--Project Gutenberg Editor's replacement of
original footnote]
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