| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift: be able to tell me what reason he had to be convinced of Mr.
Bickerstaff's ignorance. He replied, "I am a poor, ignorant
follow, bred to a mean trade, yet I have sense enough to know that
all pretences of foretelling by astrology are deceits, for this
manifest reason, because the wise and the learned, who can only
know whether there be any truth in this science, do all unanimously
agree to laugh at and despise it; and none but the poor ignorant
vulgar give it any credit, and that only upon the word of such
silly wretches as I and my fellows, who can hardly write or read."
I then asked him why he had not calculated his own nativity, to see
whether it agreed with Bickerstaff's prediction, at which he shook
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Iron Puddler by James J. Davis: draw, and every batter will knock as many home runs as Babe Ruth.
"There is enough already created to supply everybody if it were
equally divided." Yes. And there is enough ice at the North Pole
to cool off the Sahara Desert if it were equally divided. There
is enough water in the seven seas to flood the six continents if
it were equally divided.
The time to quit work and divide the wealth is just two weeks
before the end of the world. For the world's surplus of supplies
is just two weeks ahead of starvation. Wheat is being harvested
in one country or another every week in the year. And yet with
all the hard work that men can do, they can not boost the world's
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: to meet with its like.
On a rough bench in the corner, a couple of woolly-headed
boys, with glistening black eyes and fat shining cheeks, were busy
in superintending the first walking operations of the baby, which,
as is usually the case, consisted in getting up on its feet,
balancing a moment, and then tumbling down,--each successive failure
being violently cheered, as something decidedly clever.
A table, somewhat rheumatic in its limbs, was drawn out in
front of the fire, and covered with a cloth, displaying cups and
saucers of a decidedly brilliant pattern, with other symptoms of
an approaching meal. At this table was seated Uncle Tom, Mr.
Uncle Tom's Cabin |
