| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, 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 second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: Y.M. Well, lying abed resting up, two days and nights, I
have thought over all these talks, and passed them carefully in
review. With this result: that . . . that . . . are you
intending to publish your notions about Man some day?
O.M. Now and then, in these past twenty years, the Master
inside of me has half-intended to order me to set them to paper
and publish them. Do I have to tell you why the order has
remained unissued, or can you explain so simply a thing without
my help?
Y.M. By your doctrine, it is simplicity itself: outside
influences moved your interior Master to give the order; stronger
What is Man? |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from An Open Letter on Translating by Dr. Martin Luther: that I have sometimes searched and inquired about a single word
for three or four weeks. Sometimes I have not found it even then.
I have worked Meister Philip and Aurogallus so hard in translating
Job, sometimes barely translating 3 lines after four days. Now
that it has been translated into German and completed, all can
read and criticize it. One can now read three or four pages
without stumbling one time - without realizing just what rocks and
hindrances had once been where now one travels as as if over a
smoothly-cut plank. We had to sweat and toil there before we
removed those rocks and hindrances, so one could go along nicely.
The plowing goes nicely in a clear field. But nobody wants the
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