| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau: nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority.
There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men.
When the majority shall at length vote for the abolition of
slavery, it will be because they are indifferent to slavery,
or because there is but little slavery left to be abolished
by their vote. They will then be the only slaves. Only his
vote can hasten the abolition of slavery who asserts his own
freedom by his vote.
I hear of a convention to be held at Baltimore, or
elsewhere, for the selection of a candidate for the
Presidency, made up chiefly of editors, and men who are
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Camille by Alexandre Dumas: wanted to keep it. If you really want it, I will ask her for it."
"Let her keep it," I stammered, for I felt the tears rise from my
heart to my eyes at the recollection of the village where I had
been so happy, and at the thought that Marguerite cared to keep
something which had belonged to me and would recall me to her. If
she had entered at that moment my thoughts of vengeance would
have disappeared, and I should have fallen at her feet.
"For the rest," continued Prudence, "I never saw her as she is
now; she hardly takes any sleep, she goes to all the balls, she
goes to suppers, she even drinks. The other day, after a supper,
she had to stay in bed for a week; and when the doctor let her
Camille |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: to Chevrel." Many a passer-by would have found it difficult to guess
the class of trade carried on by Monsieur Guillaume. Between the
strong iron bars which protected his shop windows on the outside,
certain packages, wrapped in brown linen, were hardly visible, though
as numerous as herrings swimming in a shoal. Notwithstanding the
primitive aspect of the Gothic front, Monsieur Guillaume, of all the
merchant clothiers in Paris, was the one whose stores were always the
best provided, whose connections were the most extensive, and whose
commercial honesty never lay under the slightest suspicion. If some of
his brethren in business made a contract with the Government, and had
not the required quantity of cloth, he was always ready to deliver it,
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