| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: Thou shalt rejoice to find me altered - I,
O Felix, to behold thee still unchanged.
XXI
THE morning drum-call on my eager ear
Thrills unforgotten yet; the morning dew
Lies yet undried along my field of noon.
But now I pause at whiles in what I do,
And count the bell, and tremble lest I hear
(My work untrimmed) the sunset gun too soon.
XXII
I HAVE trod the upward and the downward slope;
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift: volumes in folio, containing memoirs of all things past, present,
and to come. The clasps were of silver double gilt, the covers of
celestial turkey leather, and the paper such as here on earth might
pass almost for vellum. Jupiter, having silently read the decree,
would communicate the import to none, but presently shut up the
book.
Without the doors of this assembly there attended a vast number of
light, nimble gods, menial servants to Jupiter: those are his
ministering instruments in all affairs below. They travel in a
caravan, more or less together, and are fastened to each other like
a link of galley-slaves, by a light chain, which passes from them
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from First Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: of the United States, to be taken by the President "before he enters
on the execution of his office."
I do not consider it necessary, at present, for me to discuss those matters
of administration about which there is no special anxiety, or excitement.
Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States
that by the accession of a Republican administration their property
and their peace and personal security are to be endangered.
There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension.
Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while
existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in
nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you.
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