| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: with blood'? I have borrowed the 'Dictionary of Cases of Conscience'
from an old ecclesiastic, but I can find nothing there to solve my
doubts. Shall I found pious masses for the repose of the souls of
Prosper Magnan, Wahlenfer, and Taillefer? Here we are in the middle of
the nineteenth century! Shall I build a hospital, or institute a prize
for virtue? A prize for virtue would be given to scoundrels; and as
for hospitals, they seem to me to have become in these days the
protectors of vice. Besides, such charitable actions, more or less
profitable to vanity, do they constitute reparation?--and to whom do I
owe reparation? But I love; I love passionately. My love is my life.
If I, without apparent motive, suggest to a young girl accustomed to
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Long Odds by H. Rider Haggard: him up. By the time I had done this the sun was down, and the full moon
was up, and a beautiful moon it was. And then there came that wonderful
hush which sometimes falls over the African bush in the early hours of
the night. No beast was moving, and no bird called. Not a breath of
air stirred the quiet trees, and the shadows did not even quiver, they
only grew. It was very oppressive and very lonely, for there was not a
sign of the cattle or the boys. I was quite thankful for the society of
old Kaptein, who was lying down contentedly against the disselboom,
chewing the cud with a good conscience.
"Presently, however, Kaptein began to get restless. First he snorted,
then he got up and snorted again. I could not make it out, so like a
Long Odds |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Second Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered
from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war,
insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war--
seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation.
Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather
than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather
than let it perish. And the war came.
One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed
generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it.
These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew
that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen,
Second Inaugural Address |
