| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The White Moll by Frank L. Packard: suddenly a vast dignity. "I'm - hic - law - 'biding citizen. Gotta
know. Gotta show me. Damn funny - coming out of there this time
of night! Eh - what'sh the idea?"
Rough Rorke, with his free hand, grabbed the young man by the
shoulder angrily.
"Mind your own business, or you'll get into trouble!" he rasped out.
"I'm an officer, and this woman is under arrest. Beat it! D'ye
hear? Beat it - or I'll run you in, too!"
"Is that'sh so!" The young man's tones expressed a fuddled defiance.
He rocked on his feet and stared from one to the other. "Shay, is
that'sh so! You will - eh? Gotta show me. How do I know you're
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas: comrades, who just arrived in time to hear the report of the
pistol, and to take me in the midst of such circumstantial
proofs of my guilt as rendered all hopes of proving my
innocence utterly futile. One only chance was left me, that
of beseeching the magistrate before whom I was taken to
cause every inquiry to be made for the Abbe Busoni, who had
stopped at the inn of the Pont du Gard on that morning. If
Caderousse had invented the story relative to the diamond,
and there existed no such person as the Abbe Busoni, then,
indeed, I was lost past redemption, or, at least, my life
hung upon the feeble chance of Caderousse himself being
The Count of Monte Cristo |
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: that I quarrel--and he has voluntarily chosen to be an agent
of the government. How shall he ever know well that he is
and does as an officer of the government, or as a man,
until he is obliged to consider whether he will treat me,
his neighbor, for whom he has respect, as a neighbor and
well-disposed man, or as a maniac and disturber of the peace,
and see if he can get over this obstruction to his
neighborlines without a ruder and more impetuous thought or
speech corresponding with his action. I know this well,
that if one thousand, if one hundred, if ten men whom I
could name--if ten honest men only--ay, if one HONEST man,
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |
