| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri: Exclaiming, "How is this, ye tardy spirits?
What negligence detains you loit'ring here?
Run to the mountain to cast off those scales,
That from your eyes the sight of God conceal."
As a wild flock of pigeons, to their food
Collected, blade or tares, without their pride
Accustom'd, and in still and quiet sort,
If aught alarm them, suddenly desert
Their meal, assail'd by more important care;
So I that new-come troop beheld, the song
Deserting, hasten to the mountain's side,
 The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: thing. They could afford it. He said that the government imposed
a protective duty of from ten to seventy per cent on foreign-made
articles, and that the American manufacturer consequently could
sell his goods for a healthy sum. Thus an imported hat would,
with duty, cost two guineas. The American manufacturer would make
a hat for seventeen shillings, and sell it for one pound fifteen.
In these things, he said, lay the greatness of America and the
effeteness of England. Competition between factory and factory
kept the prices down to decent limits, but I was never to forget
that this people were a rich people, not like the pauper
Continentals, and that they enjoyed paying duties.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from First Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: but shall be delivered up on claim of the party
to whom such service or labor may be due."
It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those
who made it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves;
and the intention of the lawgiver is the law. All members
of Congress swear their support to the whole Constitution--
to this provision as much as to any other. To the proposition,
then, that slaves whose cases come within the terms of this clause
"shall be delivered up", their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they
would make the effort in good temper, could they not with nearly
equal unanimity frame and pass a law by means of which to keep good
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