| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: appointment to office; and the new appointments that were
absolutely necessary were not half finished when the firing on
Fort Sumter began active war. This added to the difficulty of
sifting the loyal from the disloyal, and the yet more pressing
labor of organizing an immense new army.
Hundreds of clerks employed in the Government Departments left
their desks and hurried South, crippling the service just at the
time when the sudden increase of work made their presence doubly
needed. A large proportion of the officers of the Army and Navy,
perhaps as many as one-third, gave their skill and services to
the Confederacy, feeling that their allegiance was due to their
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde: There stands a little ivory girl,
Pulling the leaves of pink and pearl
With pale green nails of polished jade.
The red leaves fall upon the mould,
The white leaves flutter, one by one,
Down to a blue bowl where the sun,
Like a great dragon, writhes in gold.
The white leaves float upon the air,
The red leaves flutter idly down,
Some fall upon her yellow gown,
And some upon her raven hair.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: In these antique interjections lay poison and bitterness for
the other old pilots, and they used to chaff the 'Mark Twain'
paragraphs with unsparing mockery.
It so chanced that one of these paragraphs VICKSBURG May 4, 1859.
'My opinion for the benefit of the citizens of New Orleans:
The water is higher this far up than it has been since 8.
My opinion is that the water will be feet deep in Canal street
before the first of next June. Mrs. Turner's plantation at
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