| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln: We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place
for those who here gave their lives that this nation might live.
It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate. . .we cannot consecrate. . .
we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead,
who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power
to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember,
what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished
work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: found to belong to Venezuela, it would be the duty of the United States
to resist, by every means in its power, the aggressions of Great Britain.
This was, in effect, an ultimatum. The stock market went to pieces. In
general American opinion, war was coming. The situation was indeed grave.
First, we owed the Monroe Doctrine's very existence to English backing.
Second, the Doctrine itself had been a declaration against autocracy in
the shape of the Holy Alliance, and England was not autocracy. Lastly,
as a nation, Venezuela seldom conducted herself or her government on the
steady plan of democracy. England was exasperated. And yet England
yielded. It took a little time, but arbitration settled it in the end--
at about the same time that we flatly declined to arbitrate our quarrel
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Moran of the Lady Letty by Frank Norris: nothing to say.
As the water gained between decks the schooner's speed dwindled,
and at the same time as she approached the shore the wind, shut
off by the land, fell away. By this time the ocean was not four
inches below the stern-rail. Two miles away was the nearest sand-
spit. Wilbur broke out a distress signal on the foremast, in the
hope that Charlie and the deserters might send off the dory to
their assistance. But the deserters were nowhere in sight.
"What became of the junk?" he demanded suddenly of Moran. She
motioned to the westward with her head. "Still lying out-side."
Twenty minutes passed. Once only Moran spoke.
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