| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln: 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
before us. . .that from these honored dead we take increased devotion
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac: run away as quickly as possible, directly she was asleep, and seek
another shelter for the night.
The soldier waited with impatience the hour of his flight, and when it
had arrived he walked vigorously in the direction of the Nile; but
hardly had he made a quarter of a league in the sand when he heard the
panther bounding after him, crying with that saw-like cry more
dreadful even than the sound of her leaping.
"Ah!" he said, "then she's taken a fancy to me, she has never met
anyone before, and it is really quite flattering to have her first
love." That instant the man fell into one of those movable quicksands
so terrible to travelers and from which it is impossible to save
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: he went to and fro that he hadn't the spunk to tackle him; but
George seemed a softer kind to his eye. He would have been glad of
half a quid, anything. . . I've had misfortunes, he says softly, in
his demure way, which frightens George more than a row would have
done. . . Consider the severity of my disappointment, he says. . .
"George, instead of telling him to go to the devil, loses his head.
. . I don't know you. What do you want? he cries, and bolts up-
stairs to Cloete. . . . Look what's come of it, he gasps; now we
are at the mercy of that horrid fellow. . . Cloete tries to show
him that the fellow can do nothing; but George thinks that some
sort of scandal may be forced on, anyhow. Says that he can't live
Within the Tides |
