| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 1 by Alexis de Toqueville: or servility to their exactions, as to the inevitable visitations
of the arm of God. Custom, and the manners of the time, had
moreover created a species of law in the midst of violence, and
established certain limits to oppression. As the noble never
suspected that anyone would attempt to deprive him of the
privileges which he believed to be legitimate, and as the serf
looked upon his own inferiority as a consequence of the immutable
order of nature, it is easy to imagine that a mutual exchange of
good-will took place between two classes so differently gifted by
fate. Inequality and wretchedness were then to be found in
society; but the souls of neither rank of men were degraded. Men
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death by Patrick Henry: possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of
the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir,
she has none. They are meant for us: they can be meant for no other.
They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British
ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them?
Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years.
Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the
subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain.
Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we
find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir,
deceive ourselves. Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Aeneid by Virgil: What num'rous nations in his quarrel came,
And how they spread his formidable name.
What he design'd, what mischief might arise,
If fortune favor'd his first enterprise,
Was left for him to weigh, whose equal fears,
And common interest, was involv'd in theirs.
While Turnus and th' allies thus urge the war,
The Trojan, floating in a flood of care,
Beholds the tempest which his foes prepare.
This way and that he turns his anxious mind;
Thinks, and rejects the counsels he design'd;
Aeneid |
