| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: it to my own country, I shall appeal to the learned world, by
publishing it in Latin, and giving order to have it printed in
Holland.
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The Accomplishment of the First of Mr Bickerstaff's Predictions;
being an account of the death of Mr Partridge, the
almanack-maker, upon the 29th instant.
In a letter to a person of honour
Written in the year 1708
My Lord,
In obedience to your Lordship's commands, as well as to satisfy
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: reason is always in the same state; but that which is conceived by opinion
with the help of sensation and without reason, is always in a process of
becoming and perishing and never really is. Now everything that becomes or
is created must of necessity be created by some cause, for without a cause
nothing can be created. The work of the creator, whenever he looks to the
unchangeable and fashions the form and nature of his work after an
unchangeable pattern, must necessarily be made fair and perfect; but when
he looks to the created only, and uses a created pattern, it is not fair or
perfect. Was the heaven then or the world, whether called by this or by
any other more appropriate name--assuming the name, I am asking a question
which has to be asked at the beginning of an enquiry about anything--was
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: courteously but firmly. Meantime he lived through much
unhappiness and uncertainty of spirit, and made up his mind
"never again to think of marrying": a resolution which he kept--
until another Kentucky girl drove it from his thoughts.
Springfield had by this time become very lively and enterprising.
There was a deal of "flourishing around in carriages," as Lincoln
wrote Miss Owens, and business and politics and society all
played an active part in the life of the little town. The
meetings of the legislature brought to the new capital a group of
young men of unusual talent and ability. There was friendly
rivalry between them, and party disputes ran high, but social
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