| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Bucky O'Connor by William MacLeod Raine: butcher by temperament and choice, Chaves a personal enemy of the
prisoner, and Onate looked as grim an old scoundrel as Jeffreys
the hanging judge of James Stuart. Governor Megales, though not
technically a member of the court, was present, and took an
active part in the prosecution. He was a stout, swarthy little
man, with black, beady eyes that snapped restlessly to and fro,
and from his manner to the officers in charge of the trial it was
plain that he was a despot even in his own official family.
The court did not trouble itself with forms of law. Chaves was
both principal witness and judge, notwithstanding the protest of
the prisoner. Yet what the lieutenant had to offer in the way of
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Off on a Comet by Jules Verne: Que mas gloria puede haver?"_
Servadac's knowledge of Gascon enabled him partially to comprehend
the rollicking tenor of the Spanish patriotic air, but his attention
was again arrested by the voice of the old man growling savagely,
"Pay me you shall; yes, by the God of Abraham, you shall pay me."
"A Jew!" exclaimed Servadac.
"Ay, sir, a German Jew," said Ben Zoof.
The party was on the point of entering the thicket, when a singular
spectacle made them pause. A group of Spaniards had just begun
dancing their national fandango, and the extraordinary lightness
which had become the physical property of every object in
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau: the long and the short of the matter is, that they cannot
spare the protection of the existing government,
and they dread the consequences to their property and
families of disobedience to it. For my own part, I should
not like to think that I ever rely on the protection of the
State. But, if I deny the authority of the State when it
presents its tax bill, it will soon take and waste all my
property, and so harass me and my children without end.
This is hard. This makes it impossible for a man to live
honestly, and at the same time comfortably, in outward
respects. It will not be worth the while to accumulate
 On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |