| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: city was taken: Of being a little cautious not to sell our
country and consciences for nothing: Of teaching landlords to
have at least one degree of mercy towards their tenants. Lastly,
of putting a spirit of honesty, industry, and skill into our
shop-keepers, who, if a resolution could now be taken to buy only
our native goods, would immediately unite to cheat and exact upon
us in the price, the measure, and the goodness, nor could ever
yet be brought to make one fair proposal of just dealing, though
often and earnestly invited to it.
Therefore I repeat, let no man talk to me of these and the like
expedients, 'till he hath at least some glympse of hope, that
A Modest Proposal |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Lover's Complaint by William Shakespeare: To blush at speeches rank, to weep at woes,
Or to turn white and swoon at tragic shows;
'That not a heart which in his level came
Could scape the hail of his all-hurting aim,
Showing fair nature is both kind and tame;
And, veil'd in them, did win whom he would maim:
Against the thing he sought he would exclaim;
When he most burned in heart-wish'd luxury,
He preach'd pure maid and prais'd cold chastity.
'Thus merely with the garment of a Grace
The naked and concealed fiend he cover'd,
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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: run.
The grayling has a quaint beauty. His appearance is aesthetic,
like a fish in a pre-raphaelite picture. His colour, in midsummer,
is a golden gray, darker on the back, and with a few black spots
just behind his gills, like patches put on to bring out the pallor
of his complexion. He smells of wild thyme when he first comes out
of the water, wherefore St. Ambrose of Milan complimented him in
courtly fashion "Quid specie tua gratius? Quid odore fragrantius?
Quod mella fragrant, hoc tuo corpore spiras." But the chief glory
of the grayling is the large iridescent fin on his back. You see
it cutting the water as he swims near the surface; and when you
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