| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: is depicted as second to that of being a dutiful son. To the
practice of that supreme virtue all other considerations are
sacrificed. The student's aim is thus kept single. At every turn
of the leaves, paragons of filial piety shame the youthful reader to
the pitch of emulation by the epitaphic records of their deeds.
Portraits of the past, possibly colored, present that estimable
trait in so exalted a type that to any less filial a people they
would simply deter competition. Yet the boy implicitly believes and
no doubt resolves to rival what he reads. A specimen or two will
amply suggest the rest. In one tale the hero is held up to the
unqualified admiration of posterity for having starved to death his
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The United States Constitution: which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.
Section 2. The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity,
arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties
made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;--to all Cases affecting
Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;--to all Cases of admiralty
and maritime Jurisdiction;--to Controversies to which the United States
shall be a Party;--to Controversies between two or more States;--between a
State and Citizens of another State;--between Citizens of different States;
--between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of
different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof,
and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.
The United States Constitution |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: to do?'
" 'Well, madame,' returned he, 'when the child is seven years old, an
age at which a boy ought to pass out of women's hands'--an indication
of entire agreement on the mother's part--'if the child is really
mine'--another gesture of assent--'if there is a striking likeness, if
he bids fair to be a gentleman, if I can recognize in him my turn of
mind, and more particularly the Rusticoli air; then, oh--ah!'--a new
movement from the matron--'on my word and honor, I will make him a
cornet of--sugar-plums!'
"All this, if you will permit me to make use of the phraseology
employed by M. Sainte-Beuve for his biographies of obscurities--all
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