| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: something of that kind shall be advanced in contradiction to my
scheme, and offering a better, I desire the author or authors
will be pleased maturely to consider two points. First, As things
now stand, how they will be able to find food and raiment for a
hundred thousand useless mouths and backs. And secondly, There
being a round million of creatures in humane figure throughout
this kingdom, whose whole subsistence put into a common stock,
would leave them in debt two million of pounds sterling, adding
those who are beggars by profession, to the bulk of farmers,
cottagers and labourers, with their wives and children, who are
beggars in effect; I desire those politicians who dislike my
A Modest Proposal |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: His sister, on the contrary, had been alert to come out,
and I strolled with her half an hour, seeking the shade,
for the sun was still high and the day exceptionally warm.
I was aware afresh, with her, as we went, of how,
like her brother, she contrived--it was the charming thing
in both children--to let me alone without appearing to drop
me and to accompany me without appearing to surround.
They were never importunate and yet never listless.
My attention to them all really went to seeing them amuse
themselves immensely without me: this was a spectacle they seemed
actively to prepare and that engaged me as an active admirer.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson: to a pitch of revelry quite beyond the bounds of what is human; so
that no reasonable name can describe the sounds they were now
making. I have heard many a drunken bout in my time, many on board
that very SARAH, but never anything the least like this, which made
me early suppose the liquor had been tampered with. It was a long
while before these yells and howls died out into a sort of
miserable moaning, and then to silence; and it seemed a long while
after that before Ballantrae came down again, this time with Teach
upon his heels. The latter cursed at the sight of us three upon
the lockers.
"Tut," says Ballantrae, "you might fire a pistol at their ears.
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