| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: great destruction of pigs, too frequent at our tables; which are
no way comparable in taste or magnificence to a well grown, fat
yearly child, which roasted whole will make a considerable figure
at a Lord Mayor's feast, or any other publick entertainment. But
this, and many others, I omit, being studious of brevity.
Supposing that one thousand families in this city, would be
constant customers for infants flesh, besides others who might
have it at merry meetings, particularly at weddings and
christenings, I compute that Dublin would take off annually about
twenty thousand carcasses; and the rest of the kingdom (where
probably they will be sold somewhat cheaper) the remaining eighty
A Modest Proposal |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: To see the infinite pity of this place,
The mangled limb, the devastated face,
The innocent sufferer smiling at the rod -
A fool were tempted to deny his God.
He sees, he shrinks. But if he gaze again,
Lo, beauty springing from the breast of pain!
He marks the sisters on the mournful shores;
And even a fool is silent and adores.
Guest House, Kalawao, Molokai.
XXXII - IN MEMORIAM E. H.
I KNEW a silver head was bright beyond compare,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: which extends three hundred leagues, sometimes approaching near the
sea, and sometimes running far up into the land, there is only one
opening, through which all that merchandise is conveyed, which is
embarked at Rifa, and from thence distributed through all the east.
These mountains, as they are uncultivated, are in some parts shaded
with large forests, and in others dry and bare. As they are
exceedingly high, all the seasons may be here found together; when
the storms of winter beat on one side, on the other is often a
serene sky and a bright sunshine. The Nile runs here so near the
shore that it might without much difficulty be turned through this
opening of the mountains into the Red Sea, a design which many of
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