| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: to the light of law and liberty, and this session of Congress
is relied upon to accomplish this important work.
The plain, common-sense way of doing this work, as intimated
at the beginning, is simply to establish in the South one law,
one government, one administration of justice, one condition
to the exercise of the elective franchise, for men of all races
and colors alike. This great measure is sought as earnestly
by loyal white men as by loyal blacks, and is needed alike by both.
Let sound political prescience but take the place of an
unreasoning prejudice, and this will be done.
Men denounce the negro for his prominence in this discussion;
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas: "Malicorne," cried she, after having read it, "in truth, you
are a good lad."
"What for, mademoiselle?"
"Because you might have been paid for this commission, and
you have not." And she burst into a loud laugh, thinking to
put the clerk out of countenance; but Malicorne sustained
the attack bravely.
"I do not understand you," said he. It was now Montalais who
was disconcerted in her turn. "I have declared my sentiments
to you," continued Malicorne. "You have told me three times,
laughing all the while, that you did not love me; you have
Ten Years Later |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: can think of nothing like it save a pamphlet against mankind at large
which Diderot was afraid to publish, a book that bares man's breast
simply to expose the plague-sores upon it. We listened to just such a
pamphlet as Rameau's Nephew, spoken aloud in all good faith, in the
course of after-dinner talk in which nothing, not even the point which
the speaker wished to carry, was sacred from epigram; nothing taken
for granted, nothing built up except on ruins, nothing reverenced save
the sceptic's adopted article of belief--the omnipotence, omniscience,
and universal applicability of money.
After some target practice at the outer circle of their acquaintances,
they turned their ill-natured shafts at their intimate friends. With a
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