| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: The plain, common-sense way of doing this work, as intimated
at the beginning, is simply to establish in the South one law,
one government, one administration of justice, one condition
to the exercise of the elective franchise, for men of all races
and colors alike. This great measure is sought as earnestly
by loyal white men as by loyal blacks, and is needed alike by both.
Let sound political prescience but take the place of an
unreasoning prejudice, and this will be done.
Men denounce the negro for his prominence in this discussion;
but it is no fault of his that in peace as in war, that in
conquering Rebel armies as in reconstructing the rebellious States,
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: is this to be reconciled? Socrates, who is familiar with the poem, is
embarrassed at first, and invokes the aid of Prodicus, the countryman of
Simonides, but apparently only with the intention of flattering him into
absurdities. First a distinction is drawn between (Greek) to be, and
(Greek) to become: to become good is difficult; to be good is easy. Then
the word difficult or hard is explained to mean 'evil' in the Cean dialect.
To all this Prodicus assents; but when Protagoras reclaims, Socrates slily
withdraws Prodicus from the fray, under the pretence that his assent was
only intended to test the wits of his adversary. He then proceeds to give
another and more elaborate explanation of the whole passage. The
explanation is as follows:--
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: English lord, also porcelains in high relief; in short, the luxury of
an actress who has no other property than her furniture.
The bedroom, all in violet, was a dream that Florine had indulged from
her debut, the chief features of which were curtains of violet velvet
lined with white silk, and looped over tulle; a ceiling of white
cashmere with violet satin rays, an ermine carpet beside the bed; in
the bed, the curtains of which resembled a lily turned upside down was
a lantern by which to read the newspaper plaudits or criticisms before
they appeared in the morning. A yellow salon, its effect heightened by
trimmings of the color of Florentine bronze, was in harmony with the
rest of these magnificences, a further description of which would make
|
