| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: The other objection is the unhappy occasion of this discourse,
and relates to an article in my predictions, which foretold the
death of Mr. Partridge, to happen on March 29, 1708. This he is
pleased to contradict absolutely in the almanack he has published
for the present year, and in that ungentlemanly manner (pardon
the expression) as I have above related. In that work he very
roundly asserts, That he is not only now alive, but was likewise
alive upon that very 29th of March, when I had foretold he should
die. This is the subject of the present controversy between us;
which I design to handle with all brevity, perspicuity, and
calmness: In this dispute, I am sensible the eyes not only of
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson: I own it true.
I kent on cape and isle, a light
Burnt fair an' clearly ilka night;
But at the service I took fright,
As sune's I saw,
An' being still a neophite
Gaed straucht awa'.
Anither course I now begin,
The weeg I'll cairry for my sin,
The court my voice shall echo in,
An' - wha can tell? -
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: Agamemnon did not give him the slip and prepare war; when,
therefore, this man saw Agamemnon go by, he went and told
Aegisthus, who at once began to lay a plot for him. He picked
twenty of his bravest warriors and placed them in ambuscade on
one side the cloister, while on the opposite side he prepared a
banquet. Then he sent his chariots and horsemen to Agamemnon,
and invited him to the feast, but he meant foul play. He got him
there, all unsuspicious of the doom that was awaiting him, and
killed him when the banquet was over as though he were
butchering an ox in the shambles; not one of Agamemnon's
followers was left alive, nor yet one of Aegisthus', but they
The Odyssey |
