| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from First Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: AFTER the separation of the sections than BEFORE. The foreign
slave-trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived,
without restriction, in one section, while fugitive slaves,
now only partially surrendered, would not be surrendered
at all by the other.
Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove our
respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall
between them. A husband and wife may be divorced, and go out of
the presence and beyond the reach of each other; but the different
parts of our country cannot do this. They cannot but remain
face to face, and intercourse, either amicable or hostile,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: writings of Plato. The funeral oration of Pericles is expressly mentioned
in the Phaedrus, and this may have suggested the subject, in the same
manner that the Cleitophon appears to be suggested by the slight mention of
Cleitophon and his attachment to Thrasymachus in the Republic; and the
Theages by the mention of Theages in the Apology and Republic; or as the
Second Alcibiades seems to be founded upon the text of Xenophon, Mem. A
similar taste for parody appears not only in the Phaedrus, but in the
Protagoras, in the Symposium, and to a certain extent in the Parmenides.
To these two doubtful writings of Plato I have added the First Alcibiades,
which, of all the disputed dialogues of Plato, has the greatest merit, and
is somewhat longer than any of them, though not verified by the testimony
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: that carried him into the air with the fly in his mouth. He
weighed three-quarters of a pound. The next one was equally eager
in rising and sharp in playing, and the third might have been his
twin sister or brother. So, after casting for hours and taking
nothing in the most beautiful pools, I landed three trout from one
unlikely place in fifteen minutes. That was because the trout's
supper-time had arrived. So had mine. I walked over to the
rambling old inn at Goisern, sought the cook in the kitchen and
persuaded her, in spite of the lateness of the hour, to boil the
largest of the fish for my supper, after which I rode peacefully
back to Ischl by the eleven o'clock train.
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