| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Edingburgh Picturesque Notes by Robert Louis Stevenson: apparent, the significance remains. You may perhaps look
with a smile on the profusion of Latin mottoes - some
crawling endwise up the shaft of a pillar, some issuing
on a scroll from angels' trumpets - on the emblematic
horrors, the figures rising headless from the grave, and
all the traditional ingenuities in which it pleased our
fathers to set forth their sorrow for the dead and their
sense of earthly mutability. But it is not a hearty sort
of mirth. Each ornament may have been executed by the
merriest apprentice, whistling as he plied the mallet;
but the original meaning of each, and the combined effect
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: by the Constitution. No vindication could be more complete,
no condemnation could be more absolute and humiliating.
Unless reopened by the sword, as recklessly threatened in some circles,
this question is now closed for all time.
Without attempting to settle here the metaphysical and somewhat
theological question (about which so much has already been said and written),
whether once in the Union means always in the Union,--agreeably to the formula,
Once in grace always in grace,-- it is obvious to common sense that the
rebellious States stand to- day, in point of law, precisely where
they stood when, exhausted, beaten, conquered, they fell powerless
at the feet of Federal authority. Their State governments were overthrown,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas: down the passage nothing but a shadow, before which the
bandits bowed. According to the count's directions, Danglars
was waited on by Vampa, who brought him the best wine and
fruits of Italy; then, having conducted him to the road, and
pointed to the post-chaise, left him leaning against a tree.
He remained there all night, not knowing where he was. When
daylight dawned he saw that he was near a stream; he was
thirsty, and dragged himself towards it. As he stooped down
to drink, he saw that his hair had become entirely white.
Chapter 117
The Fifth of October.
The Count of Monte Cristo |
