| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Common Sense by Thomas Paine: of a pecuniary law, seems as unwarrantable by the divine law,
and as repugnant to human feelings, as the taking up arms
to enforce obedience thereto. The object, on either side, doth not
justify the means; for the lives of men are too valuable
to be cast away on such trifles. It is the violence which is done
and threatened to our persons; the destruction of our property
by an armed force; the invasion of our country by fire and sword,
which conscientiously qualifies the use of arms: And the instant, in which
such a mode of defence became necessary, all subjection to Britain ought
to have ceased; and the independancy of America, should have been considered,
as dating its aera from, and published by, THE FIRST MUSKET THAT WAS FIRED
Common Sense |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: Ramapos?" I knew well how to draw Jeff's stories.
"Let me tell you first about these barnacles that clog the wheels of
society by poisoning the springs of rectitude with their upas-like
eye," said Jeff, with the pure gleam of the muck-raker in his own.
"As I said, three months ago I got into bad company. There are two
times in a man's life when he does this--when he's dead broke, and
when he's rich.
"Now and then the most legitimate business runs out of luck. It was
out in Arkansas I made the wrong turn at a cross-road, and drives into
this town of Peavine by mistake. It seems I had already assaulted and
disfigured Peavine the spring of the year before. I had sold $600
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Massimilla Doni by Honore de Balzac: The Frenchman did as every Frenchman does on all occasions: he
laughed. Vendramin, who took the matter very seriously, was angry; but
he was mollified when the disciple of Majendie, of Cuvier, of
Dupuytren, and of Brossais assured him that he believed he could cure
the Prince of his high-flown raptures, and dispel the heavenly poetry
in which he shrouded Massimilla as in a cloud.
"A happy form of misfortune!" said he. "The ancients, who were not
such fools as might be inferred from their crystal heaven and their
ideas on physics, symbolized in the fable of Ixion the power which
nullifies the body and makes the spirit lord of all."
Vendramin and the doctor presently met Genovese, and with him the
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