| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: who is in constant touch with her web, is not caught in them. Why?
Let us first of all remember that the Spider has contrived for
herself, in the middle of her trap, a floor in whose construction
the sticky spiral thread plays no part. We saw how this thread
stops suddenly at some distance from the centre. There is here,
covering a space which, in the larger webs, is about equal to the
palm of one's hand, a fabric formed of spokes and of the
commencement of the auxiliary spiral, a neutral fabric in which the
exploring straw finds no adhesiveness anywhere.
Here, on this central resting-floor, and here only, the Epeira
takes her stand, waiting whole days for the arrival of the game.
The Life of the Spider |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Poor and Proud by Oliver Optic: his children. If she believed that misfortunes were all for the
best, it was only an impulse derived from the story of her
father; a kind of philosophy which was very convenient for the
evil day, because it permitted the sufferer to lie down and take
things easily. It was not a filial trust in the wisdom and mercy
of the heavenly Father that sustained her as the clouds grew
thicker and blacker around her; it was only a cold indifference,
a feeling of the head rather than the heart.
But Mrs. Redburn had been reading the New Testament during Katy's
absence, and a better and purer spirit pervaded her soul than
when the weight of the blow first struck so heavily upon her. She
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from First Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: and prevent renewed secession?
Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy.
A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations,
and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular
opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people.
Whoever rejects it does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or to despotism.
Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement,
is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle,
anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left.
I do not forget the position, assumed by some, that Constitutional
questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court; nor do I deny
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