| 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: whole society requires it, that it, so long as the established
government cannot be resisted or changed without public
inconveniencey, it is the will of God. . .that the
established government be obeyed--and no longer. This
principle being admitted, the justice of every particular
case of resistance is reduced to a computation of the
quantity of the danger and grievance on the one side, and of
the probability and expense of redressing it on the other."
Of this, he says, every man shall judge for himself.
But Paley appears never to have contemplated those cases
to which the rule of expediency does not apply, in which
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: "Well, tell it," said Dinah. "I never met Monsieur Nodier, so you have
no comparison to fear."
"Not long after the 18th Brumaire," Etienne began, "there was, as you
know, a call to arms in Brittany and la Vendee. The First Consul,
anxious before all things for peace in France, opened negotiations
with the rebel chiefs, and took energetic military measures; but,
while combining his plans of campaign with the insinuating charm of
Italian diplomacy, he also set the Machiavelian springs of the police
in movement, Fouche then being at its head. And none of these means
were superfluous to stifle the fire of war then blaring in the West.
"At this time a young man of the Maille family was despatched by the
The Muse of the Department |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain: and were soon as sociable as old acquaintances. Even
the king's reserve melted a little, though it was some
little trouble to him to adjust himself to the name of
Jones along at first. I had asked him to try to not
forget that he was a farmer; but I had also considered
it prudent to ask him to let the thing stand at that,
and not elaborate it any. Because he was just the
kind of person you could depend on to spoil a little
thing like that if you didn't warn him, his tongue was
so handy, and his spirit so willing, and his information
so uncertain.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court |
