| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas: merchandise confiscated -- fine affair that! Come, come! it
is a superb plan. Ten men only -- ten men, whom I will
engage for my service; ten men who shall be as resolute as
forty, who would cost me four times as much, and to whom,
for greater security, I will never open my mouth as to my
designs, and to whom I shall only say, `My friends, there is
a blow to be struck.' Things being after this fashion, Satan
will be very malicious if he plays me one of his tricks.
Fifteen thousand livres saved -- that's superb -- out of
twenty!"
Thus fortified by his laborious calculations, D'Artagnan
Ten Years Later |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac: government. Madame d'Espard was also a friend of a foreign lady, with
whom a famous and very wily Russian diplomate was in the habit of
discussing public affairs. And then an antiquated countess, who was
accustomed to shuffle the cards for the great game of politics, had
adopted her in a maternal fashion. Thus, to any man of high ambitions,
Madame d'Espard was preparing a covert but very real influence to
follow the public and frivolous ascendency she now owed to fashion.
Her drawing-room was acquiring political individuality: "What do they
say at Madame d'Espard's?" "Are they against the measure in Madame
d'Espard's drawing-room?" were questions repeated by a sufficient
number of simpletons to give the flock of the faithful who surrounded
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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: Abolitionists should at once effectually withdraw
their support, both in person and property, from the
government of Massachusetts, and not wait till they
constitute a majority of one, before they suffer the right
to prevail through them. I think that it is enough if they
have God on their side, without waiting for that other one.
Moreover, any man more right than his neighbors constitutes
a majority of one already.
I meet this American government, or its representative,
the State government, directly, and face to face, once a
year--no more--in the person of its tax-gatherer; this is
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |
