| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Chronicles of the Canongate by Walter Scott: wife and family, and save something off his income for old age.
What is this man to do in later life? Are you to cast him off
like an old hinge, or a piece of useless machinery, which has
done its work? To a person who had contributed to our amusement,
this would be unkind, ungrateful, and unchristian. His wants are
not of his own making, but arise from the natural sources of
sickness and old age. It cannot be denied that there is one
class of sufferers to whom no imprudence can be ascribed, except
on first entering on the profession. After putting his hand to
the dramatic plough, he cannot draw back, but must continue at
it, and toil, till death release him from want, or charity, by
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Mayflower Compact: of the Ends aforesaid; And by Virtue hereof do enact,
constitute, and frame, such just and equall Laws, Ordinances,
Acts, Constitutions, and Offices, from time to time,
as shall be thought most meete and convenient for the
Generall Good of the Colonie; unto which we promise
all due Submission and Obedience.
In Witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names
at Cape Cod the eleventh of November, in the Raigne of our
Sovereigne Lord, King James of England, France, and Ireland,
the eighteenth, and of Scotland, the fiftie-fourth,
Anno. Domini, 1620.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: feet of Stanton. He stood appalled, and, awaiting his summons from
the Power in whose eye pyramids, palaces, and the worms whose toil
has formed them, and the worms who toil out their existence under
their shadow or their pressure, are perhaps all alike contemptible,
he stood collected, and for a moment felt that defiance of danger
which danger itself excites, and we love to encounter it as a
physical enemy, to bid it "do its worst," and feel that its worst
will perhaps be ultimately its best for us. He stood and saw
another flash dart its bright, brief, and malignant glance over the
ruins of ancient power, and the luxuriance of recent fertility.
Singular contrast! The relics of art forever decaying,--the
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