| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death by Patrick Henry: Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not,
and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their
temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost,
I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.
I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of
experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past.
And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct
of the British ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes with
which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House.
Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received?
Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Astoria by Washington Irving: trade, and monopolize it from the coast of the Pacific to the
mountains, and for a considerable extent north and south. The
American traders and trappers who venture across the mountains,
instead of enjoying the participation in the trade of the river
and its tributaries, that had been stipulated by treaty, are
obliged to keep to the south, out of the track of the Hudson's
Bay parties.
Mr. Astor has withdrawn entirely from the American Fur Company,
as he has, in fact, from active business of every kind. That
company is now headed by Mr. Ramsay Crooks; its principal
establishment is at Michilimackinac, and it receives its furs
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tono Bungay by H. G. Wells: directly he heard of my loss, he had sent a pair of check
trousers to the Judkins people in London to be dyed black, and
they did not come back in time. He became very excited on the
third day, and sent a number of increasingly fiery telegrams
without any result whatever, and succumbed next morning with a
very ill grace to my aunt Susan's insistence upon the resources
of his dress-suit. In my memory those black legs of his, in a
particularly thin and shiny black cloth--for evidently his
dress-suit dated from adolescent and slenderer days--straddle
like the Colossus of Rhodes over my approach to my mother's
funeral. Moreover, I was inconvenienced and distracted by a silk
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