The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Criminal Sociology by Enrico Ferri: of the particular fact is the only matter of concern. Hence the
inevitable tendency of the jury to be dominated by isolated
facts, with no other guide than sentiment, which,
especially in southern races, confines all pity to the criminals,
whilst the crime and its victims are all but forgotten. The very
keenness of sentiment which would urge the people to administer
``summary justice'' on the criminal, when surprised in the fact,
turns entirely in his favour when he is brought up at the assizes,
with downcast mien, several months after the crime. Hence we
obtain an impassioned and purblind justice.
And the predominance of sentiment over the intelligence of the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain: me, fell the curse of Rome.
"Since that day we are avoided, shunned with horror.
None has come near this hut to know whether we live
or not. The rest of us were taken down. Then I
roused me and got up, as wife and mother will. It
was little they could have eaten in any case; it was
less than little they had to eat. But there was water,
and I gave them that. How they craved it! and how
they blessed it! But the end came yesterday; my
strength broke down. Yesterday was the last time I
ever saw my husband and this youngest child alive. I
 A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: the people of the Middle Ages bore any resemblance at all to the
figures on mediaeval stained glass, or in mediaeval stone and wood
carving, or on mediaeval metal-work, or tapestries, or illuminated
MSS. They were probably very ordinary-looking people, with nothing
grotesque, or remarkable, or fantastic in their appearance. The
Middle Ages, as we know them in art, are simply a definite form of
style, and there is no reason at all why an artist with this style
should not be produced in the nineteenth century. No great artist
ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to
be an artist. Take an example from our own day. I know that you
are fond of Japanese things. Now, do you really imagine that the
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