| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death by Patrick Henry: experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past.
And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct
of the British ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes with
which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House.
Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received?
Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves
to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our
petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and
darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and
reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that
force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves,
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from God The Invisible King by H. G. Wells: completely damned. Not to realise that one can be damned is
certainly to be damned; such is Mr. Brock's idea. It is his
definition of damnation. Satisfaction with existing things is
damnation. It is surrender to limitation; it is acquiescence in
"disharmony"; it is making peace with that enemy against whom God
fights for ever.
(But whether there are indeed Simpsons who acquiesce always and for
ever remains for me, as I have already confessed in the previous
chapter, a quite open question. My Arminian temperament turns me
from the Calvinistic conclusion of Mr. Brock's satire.)
3. SIN IS NOT DAMNATION
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: public hospital? Moreover, who does not know the repugnance which
these people feel to the payment of the two or three thousand francs
required at Charenton or in the private lunatic asylums? If any one
had spoken to Madame Margaritis of Doctors Dubuisson, Esquirol,
Blanche, and others, she would have preferred, with noble indignation,
to keep her thousands and take care of the "good-man" at home.
As the incomprehensible whims of this lunatic are connected with the
current of our story, we are compelled to exhibit the most striking of
them. Margaritis went out as soon as it rained, and walked about bare-
headed in his vineyard. At home he made incessant inquiries for
newspapers; to satisfy him his wife and the maid-servant used to give
|
