| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain: lay hands upon them and deliver them again to their
lord; for it is not seemly that one of his quality should
suffer a so insolent and high-handed outrage from
persons of their base degree."
There it was again. He could see only one side of
it. He was born so, educated so, his veins were full
of ancestral blood that was rotten with this sort of
unconscious brutality, brought down by inheritance
from a long procession of hearts that had each done
its share toward poisoning the stream. To imprison
these men without proof, and starve their kindred, was
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Statesman by Plato: STRANGER: Democracy alone, whether rigidly observing the laws or not, and
whether the multitude rule over the men of property with their consent or
against their consent, always in ordinary language has the same name.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: But do you suppose that any form of government which is defined
by these characteristics of the one, the few, or the many, of poverty or
wealth, of voluntary or compulsory submission, of written law or the
absence of law, can be a right one?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Why not?
STRANGER: Reflect; and follow me.
YOUNG SOCRATES: In what direction?
Statesman |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley: thought there were any in Europe.
There are only one or two, and how they got there is a marvel
indeed. But now-- If there was not dry land between Africa and
South America, how did the cats get into America? For they cannot
swim.
Cats? People might have brought them over.
Jaguars and Pumas, which you read of in Captain Mayne Reid's
books, are cats, and so are the Ocelots or tiger cats.
Oh, I saw them at the Zoological Gardens.
But no one would bring them over, I should think, except to put
them in the Zoo.
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