| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: hope at the same time, it will be consider'd in how deplorable a
state learning lies at present in that kingdom: And with the
profoundest veneration for crown'd heads, I will presume to add,
that it a little concerned His Majesty of Portugal, to interpose
his authority in behalf of a scholar and a gentleman, the subject
of a nation with which he is now in so strict an alliance. But
the other kingdoms and states of Europe have treated me with more
candor and generosity. If I had leave to print the Latin letters
transmitted to me from foreign parts, they would fill a volume,
and be a full defence against all that Mr. Partridge, or his
accomplices of the Portugal Inquisition, will be able to object;
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: "I know that man," he said in a cold, measured tone, evidently
calculated to frighten Pierre.
The chill that had been running down Pierre's back now seized his
head as in a vise.
"You cannot know me, General, I have never seen you..."
"He is a Russian spy," Davout interrupted, addressing another
general who was present, but whom Pierre had not noticed.
Davout turned away. With an unexpected reverberation in his voice
Pierre rapidly began:
"No, monseigneur," he said, suddenly remembering that Davout was a
duke. "No, monseigneur, you cannot have known me. I am a militia
War and Peace |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: small anecdote known only in our own family, but now made publick for the
better clearing up this point.
My father, you must know, who was originally a Turkey merchant, but had
left off business for some years, in order to retire to, and die upon, his
paternal estate in the county of. . ., was, I believe, one of the most
regular men in every thing he did, whether 'twas matter of business, or
matter of amusement, that ever lived. As a small specimen of this extreme
exactness of his, to which he was in truth a slave, he had made it a rule
for many years of his life,--on the first Sunday-night of every month
throughout the whole year,--as certain as ever the Sunday-night came,--to
wind up a large house-clock, which we had standing on the back-stairs head,
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