| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Second Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies
of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress
of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known
to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory
and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction
in regard to it is ventured.
On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts
were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it--
all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered
from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war,
insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war--
Second Inaugural Address |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: The lesson to be drawn from the study of this antique life will
impress itself more deeply upon us after we have briefly
contemplated the striking contrast to it which is afforded by the
phase of civilization amid which we live to-day. Ever since Greek
civilization was merged in Roman imperialism, there has been a
slowly growing tendency toward complexity of social life,--toward
the widening of sympathies, the multiplying of interests, the
increase of the number of things to be done. Through the later
Middle Ages, after Roman civilization had absorbed and
disciplined the incoming barbarism which had threatened to
destroy it, there was a steadily increasing complication of
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Malbone: An Oldport Romance by Thomas Wentworth Higginson: and that he had better take her young, as having habits less
fixed. But in his secret soul he treasured every tone of this
girl's voice, every glance of her eye, and would have kept in a
casket of gold and diamonds the little fragrant glove she once
let fall. He envied the penniless and brainless boys, who, with
ready gallantry, pushed by him to escort her to her carriage;
and he lay awake at night to form into words the answer he
ought to have made, when she threw at him some careless phrase,
and gave him the opportunity to blunder.
And she, meanwhile, unconscious of his passion, went by him in
her beauty, and caught him in the net she never threw. Emilia
|
