Advice Gratis to Certain Women – By a Woman
O, my strong-minded sisters, aspiring to vote, And to row with your brothers, all in the same boat, When you come out to speak to the public your mind,
Leave your tricks, and your airs, and your graces behind!
For instance, when you by the world would be seen As reporter, or editor (first-class, I mean), I think – just to come to the point in one line –
What you write will be finer, if ’tis not too fine.
Pray, don’t let the thread of your subject be strung With "golden," and "shimmer," "sweet," "filter," and "flung;" Nor compel, by your style, all your readers to guess
You’ve ________ looking up words Webster marks obs.
And another thing: whatever else you may say, Do keep personalities out of the way; Don’t try every sentence to make people see
What a dear, charming creature the writer must be!
Don’t mistake me; I mean that the public’s not home, You must do as the Romans do, when you’re in Rome; I would have you be womanly, while you are wise;
’Tis the weak and the womanish tricks I despise.
’Tis a good thing to write, and to rule in the state, But to be a true, womanly woman is great: And if ever you come to be that, ’twill be when
You can cease to be babies, nor try to be men!
(Adaptado de: CAREY, Phoebe. Advice Gratis to Certain Women. In: RATTINER, Susan (ed.). Great Poems by American Women: An Anthology. Mineola: Dover Thrift, 1998. p. 72.)
I am happy to join __________ you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
In the process __________ gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom __________ drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. When we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every state and every city, we will speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will join hands and sing the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
Adaptado de: LUTHER KING JR., Martin. I have a dream. Disponível em:
Assinale a alternativa que poderia substituir o trecho The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community (l. 13-14), sem significativa alteração de sentido ou prejuízo da correção gramatical.