| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: Catholics:- an odd name for them, after all? But why, in God's
name, these holiday choristers? why these priests who steal
wandering looks about the congregation while they feign to be at
prayer? why this fat nun, who rudely arranges her procession and
shakes delinquent virgins by the elbow? why this spitting, and
snuffing, and forgetting of keys, and the thousand and one little
misadventures that disturb a frame of mind laboriously edified with
chaunts and organings? In any play-house reverend fathers may see
what can be done with a little art, and how, to move high
sentiments, it is necessary to drill the supernumeraries and have
every stool in its proper place.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death by Patrick Henry: we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late
to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery!
Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston!
The war is inevitable--and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come.
It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace--
but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps
from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms!
Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle?
What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear,
or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?
Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take;
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley: water-chisel into deep glens, mighty cliffs, sharp peaks, such as
you see aloft, and making the old hills beautiful once more. Why,
even the Alps in Switzerland have been carved out by frost and
rain, out of some great flat. The very peak of the Matterhorn, of
which you have so often seen a picture, is but one single point
left of some enormous bun of rock. All the rest has been carved
away by rain and frost; and some day the Matterhorn itself will be
carved away, and its last stone topple into the glacier at its
foot. See, as we have been talking, we have got into the woods.
Oh, what beautiful woods, just like our own.
Not quite. There are some things growing here which do not grow
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