| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Wife, et al by Anton Chekhov: his ease, and trivial daily cares faintly agitate him like the
wind in the aspen-tree -- and all goes well.
"That night I realized that I, too, was happy and contented,"
Ivan Ivanovitch went on, getting up. "I, too, at dinner and at
the hunt liked to lay down the law on life and religion, and the
way to manage the peasantry. I, too, used to say that science was
light, that culture was essential, but for the simple people
reading and writing was enough for the time. Freedom is a
blessing, I used to say; we can no more do without it than
without air, but we must wait a little. Yes, I used to talk like
that, and now I ask, 'For what reason are we to wait?' " asked
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Common Sense by Thomas Paine: Had ye the honest soul of BARCLAY ye would preach repentance to YOUR king;
Ye would tell the Royal Wretch his sins, and warn him of eternal ruin.
["Thou hast tasted of prosperity and adversity; thou knowest what it is
to be banished thy native country, to be over-ruled as well as to rule,
and set upon the throne; and being oppressed thou hast reason to know
how hateful the oppressor is both to God and man: If after all these warnings
and advertisements, thou dost not turn unto the Lord with all thy heart,
but forget him who remembered thee in thy distress, and give up thyself
to fallow lust and vanity, surely great will be thy condemnation.--
Against which snare, as well as the temptation of those who may
or do feed thee, and prompt thee to evil, the most excellent and prevalent
Common Sense |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: are sure to fall, simply because men must eat and drink for to-
morrow they die. The Military and Bureaucratic Despotism which
keeps the many quiet, as in old Rome, by PANEM ET CIRCENSES--bread
and games--or, if need be, Pilgrimages; that the few may make money,
eat, drink, and be merry, as long as it can last. That, let it ape
as it may--as did the Caesars of old Rome at first--as another
Emperor did even in our own days--the forms of dead freedom, really
upholds an artificial luxury by brute force; and consecrates the
basest of all aristocracies, the aristocracy of the money-bag, by
the divine sanction of the bayonet.
That at all risks, even at the price of precious blood, the free
|
