| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: Abolitionist, an English sympathizer wrote that three thousand men of
Manchester had met there and adopted by acclamation an enthusiastic
message to Lincoln. These men said that they would rather remain unem-
ployed for twenty years than get cotton from the South at the expense of
the slave. A month later Cobden writes to Charles Sumner: "I know nothing
in my political experience so striking, an a display of spontaneous
public action, as that of the vast gathering at Exeter Hall (in London),
when, without one attraction in the form of a popular orator, the vast
building, its minor rooms and passages, and the streets adjoining, were
crowded with an enthusiastic audience. That meeting has had a powerful
effect on our newspapers and politicians. It has closed the mouths of
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: ALCIBIADES: Clearly.
SOCRATES: But how is this, friend Alcibiades? Have you forgotten that you
do not know this, or have you been to the schoolmaster without my
knowledge, and has he taught you to discern the just from the unjust? Who
is he? I wish you would tell me, that I may go and learn of him--you shall
introduce me.
ALCIBIADES: You are mocking, Socrates.
SOCRATES: No, indeed; I most solemnly declare to you by Zeus, who is the
God of our common friendship, and whom I never will forswear, that I am
not; tell me, then, who this instructor is, if he exists.
ALCIBIADES: But, perhaps, he does not exist; may I not have acquired the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll: " 'You may seek it with thimbles--and seek it with care;
You may hunt it with forks and hope;
You may threaten its life with a railway-share;
You may charm it with smiles and soap--' "
("That's exactly the method," the Bellman bold
In a hasty parenthesis cried,
"That's exactly the way I have always been told
That the capture of Snarks should be tried!")
" 'But oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day,
If your Snark be a Boojum! For then
You will softly and suddenly vanish away,
The Hunting of the Snark |
