| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: it quite fair then to keep your face so steadily on my most light-
hearted works, and then say I recognise no evil? Yet in the paper
on Burns, for instance, I show myself alive to some sorts of evil.
But then, perhaps, they are not your sorts.
And again: 'to say all'? All: yes. Everything: no. The task
were endless, the effect nil. But my all, in such a vast field as
this of life, is what interests me, what stands out, what takes on
itself a presence for my imagination or makes a figure in that
little tricky abbreviation which is the best that my reason can
conceive. That I must treat, or I shall be fooling with my
readers. That, and not the all of some one else.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death by Patrick Henry: country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy
can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone.
There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will
raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the
strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir,
we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late
to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery!
Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston!
The war is inevitable--and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come.
It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace--
but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Koran: evil it is against it; then unto your Lord shall ye be returned.
And we did bring the children of Israel the Book and judgment and
prophecy, and we provided them with good things, and preferred them
above the worlds. And we brought them manifest proofs of the affair,
and they disputed not until after knowledge had come to them,
through mutual envy. Verily, thy Lord will decide between them on
the resurrection day concerning that whereon they did dispute.
Then we did set thee over a law concerning the affair: follow it
then, and follow not the lusts of those who do not know. Verily,
they shall not avail thee against God at all; and, verily, the
wrongdoers are patrons of each other, but God is the patron of those
The Koran |
