| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: France, to preach political good-will and moderation, and to dwell
on the example of Poland, much as some alarmists in England dwell
on the example of Carthage. The priest and the commandant assured
me of their sympathy with all I said, and made a heavy sighing over
the bitterness of contemporary feeling.
'Why, you cannot say anything to a man with which he does not
absolutely agree,' said I, 'but he flies up at you in a temper.'
They both declared that such a state of things was antichristian.
While we were thus agreeing, what should my tongue stumble upon but
a word in praise of Gambetta's moderation. The old soldier's
countenance was instantly suffused with blood; with the palms of
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 1 by Alexis de Toqueville: their strength, and they are chary of the affection of their
people, because the affection of their people is the bulwark of
the throne. A mutual interchange of good-will then takes place
between the prince and the people, which resembles the gracious
intercourse of domestic society. The subjects may murmur at the
sovereign's decree, but they are grieved to displease him; and
the sovereign chastises his subjects with the light hand of
parental affection.
But when once the spell of royalty is broken in the tumult
of revolution; when successive monarchs have crossed the throne,
so as alternately to display to the people the weakness of their
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic: He gossiped about his parishioners as if he enjoyed it.
He made a specially happy thumb-nail sketch for her of
one of his trustees, Erastus Winch, the loud-mouthed,
ostentatiously jovial, and really cold-hearted cheese-buyer.
She was particularly interested in hearing about this man.
The personality of Winch seemed to have impressed her,
and she brought the talk back to him more than once,
and prompted Theron to the very threshold of indiscretion
in his confidences on the subject.
Save at meal-times, Sister Soulsby spent the two days out
around among the Methodists of Octavius. She had little
The Damnation of Theron Ware |
