| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Common Sense by Thomas Paine: they may be to think so, matters not, but many strong and striking reasons
may be given, to shew, that nothing can settle our affairs so expeditiously
as an open and determined declaration for independance. Some of which are,
FIRST. -- It is the custom of nations, when any two are at war,
for some other powers, not engaged in the quarrel, to step in as mediators,
and bring about the preliminaries of a peace: hut while America calls
herself the Subject of Great Britain, no power, however well disposed
she may be, can offer her mediation. Wherefore, in our present state
we may quarrel on for ever.
SECONDLY. -- It is unreasonable to suppose, that France or Spain will
give us any kind of assistance, if we mean only, to make use of that
Common Sense |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Recruit by Honore de Balzac: childhood, with a constitution that was ever improving, in spite of
the warnings of the Faculty.
Thanks to her constant care, this son had grown and developed so much,
and so gracefully, that at twenty years of age, he was thought a most
elegant cavalier at Versailles. Madame de Dey possessed a happiness
which does not always crown the efforts and struggles of a mother. Her
son adored her; their souls understood each other with fraternal
sympathy. If they had not been bound by nature's ties, they would
instinctively have felt for each other that friendship of man to man,
which is so rarely to be met in this life. Appointed sub-lieutenant of
dragoons, at the age of eighteen, the young Comte de Dey had obeyed
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Adam Bede by George Eliot: is its eternal sun.
"Dear friends," she said at last, "brothers and sisters, whom I
love as those for whom my Lord has died, believe me, I know what
this great blessedness is; and because I know it, I want you to
have it too. I am poor, like you: I have to get my living with my
hands; but no lord nor lady can be so happy as me, if they haven't
got the love of God in their souls. Think what it is--not to hate
anything but sin; to be full of love to every creature; to be
frightened at nothing; to be sure that all things will turn to
good; not to mind pain, because it is our Father's will; to know
that nothing--no, not if the earth was to be burnt up, or the
Adam Bede |
