| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: and a country torn and rent and bleeding implores relief
from its distress and agony.
If time was at first needed, Congress has now had time.
All the requisite materials from which to form an intelligent
judgment are now before it. Whether its members look at the origin,
the progress, the termination of the war, or at the mockery of
a peace now existing, they will find only one unbroken chain of argument
in favor of a radical policy of reconstruction. For the omissions
of the last session, some excuses may be allowed. A treacherous
President stood in the way; and it can be easily seen how reluctant
good men might be to admit an apostasy which involved so much
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: 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
England, but of all Europe, will be upon us; and the learned in
every country will, I doubt not, take part on that side, where
they find most appearance of reason and truth.
Without entering into criticisms of chronology about the hour of
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: The schoolhouse stood in a rather lonely but pleasant situation,
just at the foot of a woody hill, with a brook running close by,
and a formidable birch-tree growing at one end of it. From hence
the low murmur of his pupils' voices, conning over their lessons,
might be heard in a drowsy summer's day, like the hum of a
beehive; interrupted now and then by the authoritative voice of
the master, in the tone of menace or command, or, peradventure,
by the appalling sound of the birch, as he urged some tardy
loiterer along the flowery path of knowledge. Truth to say, he
was a conscientious man, and ever bore in mind the golden maxim,
"Spare the rod and spoil the child." Ichabod Crane's scholars
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
