| 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: up in the county jail therefor, it would be the abolition of
slavery in America. For it matters not how small the
beginning may seem to be: what is once well done is done
forever. But we love better to talk about it: that we say
is our mission. Reform keeps many scores of newspapers in
its service, but not one man. If my esteemed neighbor, the
State's ambassador, who will devote his days to the
settlement of the question of human rights in the Council
Chamber, instead of being threatened with the prisons of
Carolina, were to sit down the prisoner of Massachusetts,
that State which is so anxious to foist the sin of slavery
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: Dalmatian was taken under the protection of Mademoiselle Laguerre, who
was touched by her story. It seems as if it were the destiny of the
child to be taken care of by the owners of Les Aigues! Pere Niseron
obtained its clothes, and now and then some help in money from
Mademoiselle."
The countess and Olympe were just then standing before a window from
which they could see Michaud approaching the abbe and Blondet, who
were walking up and down the wide, semi-circular gravelled space which
repeated on the park side of the pavilion the exterior half-moon; they
were conversing earnestly.
"Where is she?" said the countess; "you make me anxious to see her."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas: Mazarin and had aided in his father's deliverance from
prison. His name had been mentioned as a name of terror at
the Palais Royal. Laughingly he said to the councillor,
restored to his family:
"Do you think, father, that if now I should ask for a
company the queen would give it to me?"
D'Artagnan profited by this interval of calm to send away
Raoul, whom he had great difficulty in keeping shut up
during the riot, and who wished positively to strike a blow
for one party or the other. Raoul had offered some
opposition at first; but D'Artagnan made use of the Comte de
Twenty Years After |
