| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne: visit from him. Arrived on the confines of the immense
Muscovite Empire, the Grand Duke was returning towards
Irkutsk, from which place he intended to retake the road to
Moscow, when, sudden as a thunder clap, came the news of
the invasion.
He hastened to the capital, but only reached it just
before communication with Russia had been interrupted.
There was time to receive only a few telegrams from St.
Petersburg and Moscow, and with difficulty to answer them
before the wire was cut. Irkutsk was isolated from the rest
of the world.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: " ' "But the money was left with the porter's wife," said she.
" 'I pretended not to understand.
" ' "You go out early, mademoiselle, it seems."
" ' "I very seldom leave my room; but when you work all night, you are
obliged to take a bath sometimes."
" 'I looked at her. A glance told me all about her life. Here was a
girl condemned by misfortune to toil, a girl who came of honest farmer
folk, for she had still a freckle or two that told of country birth.
There was an indefinable atmosphere of goodness about her; I felt as
if I were breathing sincerity and frank innocence. It was refreshing
to my lungs. Poor innocent child, she had faith in something; there
Gobseck |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from First Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted
and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation
in 1778. And, finally, in 1787 one of the declared objects for ordaining
and establishing the Constitution was "TO FORM A MORE PERFECT UNION."
But if the destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the States
be lawfully possible, the Union is LESS perfect than before the Constitution,
having lost the vital element of perpetuity.
It follows from these views that no State upon its own mere motion
can lawfully get out of the Union; that Resolves and Ordinances
to that effect are legally void; and that acts of violence,
within any State or States, against the authority of the United States,
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