| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Don Quixote by Miquel de Cervantes: the other's want of advocacy, and lastly the perverted judgment of the
judge may have been the cause of your ruin and of your failure to
obtain the justice you had on your side. All which presents itself now
to my mind, urging, persuading, and even compelling me to
demonstrate in your case the purpose for which Heaven sent me into the
world and caused me to make profession of the order of chivalry to
which I belong, and the vow I took therein to give aid to those in
need and under the oppression of the strong. But as I know that it
is a mark of prudence not to do by foul means what may be done by
fair, I will ask these gentlemen, the guards and commissary, to be
so good as to release you and let you go in peace, as there will be no
 Don Quixote |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: freedom and of pleasure; the latter lives in the home of her
husband as if it were a cloister. Yet these two different
conditions of life are perhaps not so contrary as may be
supposed, and it is natural that the American women should pass
through the one to arrive at the other.
Religious peoples and trading nations entertain peculiarly
serious notions of marriage: the former consider the regularity
of woman's life as the best pledge and most certain sign of the
purity of her morals; the latter regard it as the highest
security for the order and prosperity of the household. The
Americans are at the same time a puritanical people and a
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Footnote to History by Robert Louis Stevenson: There was his bread-basket; a small success in that direction would
immediately curtail his resources; and it might be possible with
energy to roll up his line along the beach and take the citadel in
reverse. The scheme was carried out as might be expected from
these childish soldiers. Mataafa, always uneasy about Apia, clung
with a portion of his force to Laulii; and thus, had the foe been
enterprising, exposed himself to disaster. The expedition fell
successfully enough on Saluafata and drove out the Tamaseses with a
loss of four heads; but so far from improving the advantage,
yielded immediately to the weakness of the Samoan warrior, and
ranged farther east through unarmed populations, bursting with
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