| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Inaugural Address by John F. Kennedy: of support. . .to prevent it from becoming merely a forum for
invective. . .to strengthen its shield of the new and the weak. . .
and to enlarge the area in which its writ may run.
Finally, to those nations who would make themselves our adversaries,
we offer not a pledge but a request: that both sides begin anew
the quest for peace; before the dark powers of destruction unleashed
by science engulf all humanity in planned or accidental self-destruction.
We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient
beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.
But neither can two great and powerful groups of nations take comfort from
our present course. . .both sides overburdened by the cost of modern weapons,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Kenilworth by Walter Scott: of this same stuff; which cannot prejudice above one or two
individuals, in order to gain lifetime to discover the universal
medicine, which shall clear away all mortal diseases at once.
But cheer up, thou grave, learned, and most melancholy jackanape!
Hast thou not told me that a moderate portion of thy drug hath
mild effects, no ways ultimately dangerous to the human frame,
but which produces depression of spirits, nausea, headache, an
unwillingness to change of place--even such a state of temper as
would keep a bird from flying out of a cage were the door left
open?"
"I have said so, and it is true," said the alchemist. "This
Kenilworth |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: Scripture, but it had never occurred to me that the pots we use were
not such as had come down unbroken from those days, or grown on
trees like gourds somewhere, and I was pleased to hear that so
fictile an art was ever practiced in my neighborhood.
The last inhabitant of these woods before me was an Irishman,
Hugh Quoil (if I have spelt his name with coil enough), who occupied
Wyman's tenement -- Col. Quoil, he was called. Rumor said that he
had been a soldier at Waterloo. If he had lived I should have made
him fight his battles over again. His trade here was that of a
ditcher. Napoleon went to St. Helena; Quoil came to Walden Woods.
All I know of him is tragic. He was a man of manners, like one who
Walden |
