| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: who would not wed the prince who loves her.
"Refuse, Thuvia of Ptarth, and there remains but a
single alternative--no man must ever know your fate.
Only a handful of loyal servitors besides my royal father
and myself know that you were stolen from the gardens of
Thuvan Dihn by Astok, Prince of Dusar, or that to-day
you be imprisoned in my palace.
"Refuse, Thuvia of Ptarth, and you must die to save Dusar--
there is no other way. Nutus, the jeddak, has so decreed.
I have spoken."
For a long moment the girl let her level gaze rest full
Thuvia, Maid of Mars |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Albert Savarus by Honore de Balzac: have weight in the Chamber, for you will distinguish yourself
there.'
"And so, my beloved angel, say what you will, my perseverance will
be rewarded. Ere long I shall, from the high place of the French
Tribune, come before my country, before Europe. My name will be
flung to you by the hundred voices of the French press.
"Yes, as you tell me, I was old when I came to Besancon, and
Besancon has aged me more; but, like Sixtus V., I shall be young
again the day after my election. I shall enter on my true life, my
own sphere. Shall we not then stand in the same line? Count
Savaron de Savarus, Ambassador I know not where, may surely marry
Albert Savarus |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau: American government can make, or such as it can make a man
with its black arts--a mere shadow and reminiscence of
humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already,
as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniment,
though it may be,
"Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where out hero was buried."
The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly,
but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army,
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |
