| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau: But Paley appears never to have contemplated those cases
to which the rule of expediency does not apply, in which
a people, as well and an individual, must do justice, cost
what it may. If I have unjustly wrested a plank from a
drowning man, I must restore it to him though I drown myself.
This, according to Paley, would be inconvenient.
But he that would save his life, in such a case, shall lose it.
This people must cease to hold slaves, and to make war
on Mexico, though it cost them their existence as a people.
In their practice, nations agree with Paley; but does
anyone think that Massachusetts does exactly what is right
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Macbeth by William Shakespeare: Mal. If such a one be fit to gouerne, speake:
I am as I haue spoken
Mac. Fit to gouern? No not to liue. O Natio[n] miserable!
With an vntitled Tyrant, bloody Sceptred,
When shalt thou see thy wholsome dayes againe?
Since that the truest Issue of thy Throne
By his owne Interdiction stands accust,
And do's blaspheme his breed? Thy Royall Father
Was a most Sainted-King: the Queene that bore thee,
Oftner vpon her knees, then on her feet,
Dy'de euery day she liu'd. Fare thee well,
Macbeth |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad: "There were never two people more taken aback. Versoy himself
confesses that he dropped his tall hat with a crash. I am a
dutiful son, I hope, but I must say I should have liked to have
seen the retreat down the great staircase. Ha! Ha! Ha!"
He laughed most undutifully and then his face twitched grimly.
"That implacable brute Allegre followed them down ceremoniously and
put my mother into the fiacre at the door with the greatest
deference. He didn't open his lips though, and made a great bow as
the fiacre drove away. My mother didn't recover from her
consternation for three days. I lunch with her almost daily and I
couldn't imagine what was the matter. Then one day . . ."
The Arrow of Gold |
