| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Second Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: 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--
seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation.
Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather
than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather
Second Inaugural Address |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from McTeague by Frank Norris: have begun as a midshipman on my brother's ship; in time he
would have been an officer. The other would have been a
landscape gardener."
"Oh, Mac!" exclaimed Trina, looking up into the dentist's
face, "think of all this money coming to us just at this
very moment. Isn't it wonderful? Don't it kind of scare
you?"
"Wonderful, wonderful!" muttered McTeague, shaking his head.
"Let's buy a lot of tickets," he added, struck with an idea.
"Now, that's how you can always tell a good cigar,"
observed the agent to Marcus as the two sat smoking at the
McTeague |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: all grinned with mischief as they looked down on the loiterer, and
sprinkled him with a fine white shower of which the scent proved that
three chins had just been shaved. Standing on tiptoe, in the farthest
corner of their loft, to enjoy their victim's rage, the lads ceased
laughing on seeing the haughty indifference with which the young man
shook his cloak, and the intense contempt expressed by his face as he
glanced up at the empty window-frame.
At this moment a slender white hand threw up the lower half of one of
the clumsy windows on the third floor by the aid of the sash runners,
of which the pulley so often suddenly gives way and releases the heavy
panes it ought to hold up. The watcher was then rewarded for his long
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