| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton: sands of St. Augustine with May Welland? No one was
deceived by his pretense of professional activity. In
old-fashioned legal firms like that of which Mr. Letterblair
was the head, and which were mainly engaged in
the management of large estates and "conservative"
investments, there were always two or three young
men, fairly well-off, and without professional ambition,
who, for a certain number of hours of each day, sat at
their desks accomplishing trivial tasks, or simply reading
the newspapers. Though it was supposed to be
proper for them to have an occupation, the crude fact
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas: aggressions.
The host, his helpers, and two watchmen who were passing,
and who from curiosity had penetrated too far into the room,
were mixed up in the tumult and showered with blows. The
Parisians hit like Cyclops, with an ensemble and a tactic
delightful to behold. At length, obliged to beat a retreat
before superior numbers, they formed an intrenchment behind
the large table, which they raised by main force; whilst the
two others, arming themselves each with a trestle, and using
it like a great sledge-hammer, knocked down at a blow eight
sailors upon whose heads they had brought their monstrous
Ten Years Later |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau: until he is obliged to consider whether he will treat me,
his neighbor, for whom he has respect, as a neighbor and
well-disposed man, or as a maniac and disturber of the peace,
and see if he can get over this obstruction to his
neighborlines without a ruder and more impetuous thought or
speech corresponding with his action. I know this well,
that if one thousand, if one hundred, if ten men whom I
could name--if ten honest men only--ay, if one HONEST man,
in this State of Massachusetts, ceasing to hold slaves, were
actually to withdraw from this co-partnership, and be locked
up in the county jail therefor, it would be the abolition of
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |
