| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: "Lady Matilda," said John, "yield yourself my prisoner."
"If you would wear me, prince," said Matilda, "you must win me:"
and without giving him time to deliberate on the courtesy of fighting
with the lady of his love, she raised her sword in the air, and lowered
it on his head with an impetus that would have gone nigh to fathom
even that extraordinary depth of brain which always by divine grace
furnishes the interior of a head-royal, if he had not very dexterously
parried the blow. Prince John wished to disarm and take captive,
not in any way to wound or injure, least of all to kill, his fair opponent.
Matilda was only intent to get rid of her antagonist at any rate:
the edge of her weapon painted his complexion with streaks of very
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: them into the void. Striving for the miracles of ecstasy and the
powers of sorcery, he tried to see his riches through space and
obstacles. He was constantly absorbed in one overwhelming thought,
consumed with a single desire that burned his entrails, gnawed more
cruelly still by the ever-increasing agony of the duel he was fighting
with himself since his passion for gold had turned to his own injury,
--a species of uncompleted suicide which kept him at once in the
miseries of life and in those of death.
Never was a Vice more punished by itself. A miser, locked by accident
into the subterranean strong-room that contains his treasures, has,
like Sardanapalus, the happiness of dying in the midst of his wealth.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Common Sense by Thomas Paine: THAT YOUR WICKEDNESS IS GREAT WHICH YE HAVE DONE IN THE SIGHT OF THE LORD,
AND THE LORD SENT THUNDER AND RAIN THAT DAY, AND ALL THE PEOPLE GREATLY
FEARED THE LORD AND SAMUEL. AND ALL THE PEOPLE SAID UNTO SAMUEL,
PRAY FOR THY SERVANTS UNTO THE LORD THY GOD THAT WE DIE NOT,
FOR _WE HAVE ADDED UNTO OUR SINS THIS EVIL, TO ASK A KING._
These portions of scripture are direct and positive.
They admit of no equivocal construction. That the Almighty
hath here entered his protest against monarchical government,
is true, or the scripture is false. And a man hath good reason
to believe that there is as much of kingcraft, as priestcraft,
in withholding the scripture from the public in Popish countries.
Common Sense |
