| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Crito by Plato: you go away and leave them, and they will have to take their chance; and if
they do not meet with the usual fate of orphans, there will be small thanks
to you. No man should bring children into the world who is unwilling to
persevere to the end in their nurture and education. But you appear to be
choosing the easier part, not the better and manlier, which would have been
more becoming in one who professes to care for virtue in all his actions,
like yourself. And indeed, I am ashamed not only of you, but of us who are
your friends, when I reflect that the whole business will be attributed
entirely to our want of courage. The trial need never have come on, or
might have been managed differently; and this last act, or crowning folly,
will seem to have occurred through our negligence and cowardice, who might
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Common Sense by Thomas Paine: fifty or sixty of those ships, with a few guardships on constant duty,
would keep up a sufficient navy, and that without burdening ourselves
with the evil so loudly complained of in England, of suffering their fleet,
in time of peace to lie rotting in the docks. To unite the sinews
of commerce and defense is sound policy; for when our strength
and our riches play into each other's hand, we need fear no external enemy.
In almost every article of defense we abound. Hemp flourishes even
to rankness, so that we need not want cordage. Our iron is superior
to that of other countries. Our small arms equal to any in the world.
Cannon we can cast at pleasure. Saltpetre and gunpowder we are every
day producing. Our knowledge is hourly improving. Resolution is our
Common Sense |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Whirligigs by O. Henry: When not rewriting, Ames sat on the porch of his Brooklyn
villa playing checkers with his ten-year-old son.
Ames and the "war editor" shut themselves in a room.
There was a map in there stuck full of little pins that
represented armies and divisions. Their fingers had
been itching for days to move those pins along the crooked
line of the Yalu. They did so now; and in words of fire
Ames translated Calloway's brief message into a front
page masterpiece that set the world talking. He told of
the secret councils of the Japanese officers; gave Kuroki's
flaming speeches in full; counted the cavalry and infantry
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