| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tarzan the Untamed by Edgar Rice Burroughs: Otobu, trained to obey, did as he was bid. The eyes of the
man and the girl followed him, and as he drew back the hang-
ings and dragged forth the corpse of the man Smith-Oldwick
had slain, the girl's lover voiced a loud scream and attempted
to leap forward to the side of the corpse. Tarzan, however,
seized him and then the fellow turned upon him with teeth
and nails. It was with no little difficulty that Tarzan finally
sub-
dued the man, and while Otobu was removing the outer cloth-
ing from the corpse, Tarzan asked the black to question the
young man as to his evident excitement at the sight of the body.
Tarzan the Untamed |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: truthing, in the newspapers. Sends me some strings of verses,
candidates for the Orthopedic Infirmary, all of them, in which I
learn for the millionth time one of the following facts: either
that something about a chime is sublime, or that something about
time is sublime, or that something about a chime is concerned with
time, or that something about a rhyme is sublime or concerned with
time or with a chime. Wishes my opinion of the same, with advice
as to his future course.
What shall I do about it? Tell him the whole truth, and send him a
ticket of admission to the Institution for Idiots and Feeble-minded
Youth? One doesn't like to be cruel, - and yet one hates to lie.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
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: citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign
his conscience to the legislator? WHy has every man a
conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and
subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a
respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only
obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any
time what I think right. It is truly enough said that a
corporation has no conscience; but a corporation on
conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience. Law
never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their
respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |
