| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from First Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: the executive branch of the government. They have conducted it through
many perils, and generally with great success. Yet, with all this scope
of precedent, I now enter upon the same task for the brief Constitutional
term of four years under great and peculiar difficulty. A disruption of
the Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is now formidably attempted.
I hold that, in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution,
the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied,
if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments.
It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision
in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all
the express provisions of our National Constitution, and the Union will
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Little Britain by Washington Irving: Street, certain remains of what were once spacious and lordly
family mansions, but which have in latter days been subdivided
into several tenements. Here may often be found the family of
a petty tradesman, with its trumpery furniture, burrowing
among the relics of antiquated finery, in great, rambling, time-
stained apartments, with fretted ceilings, gilded cornices, and
enormous marble fireplaces. The lanes and courts also contain
many smaller houses, not on so grand a scale, but, like your
small ancient gentry, sturdily maintaining their claims to equal
antiquity. These have their gable ends to the street; great bow-
windows, with diamond panes set in lead, grotesque carvings,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: "It will be more than seeming then," said she.
"You are a very young maid," said I, "and I am but a very young
callant. This is a great piece of difficulty. What way are we to
manage? Unless indeed, you could pass to be my sister?"
"And what for no?" said she, "if you would let me!"
"I wish you were so, indeed," I cried. "I would be a fine man if I had
such a sister. But the rub is that you are Catriona Drummond."
"And now I will be Catriona Balfour," she said. "And who is to ken?
They are all strange folk here."
"If you think that it would do," says I. "I own it troubles me. I
would like it very ill, if I advised you at all wrong."
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