| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: Marie never did, and I don't see no kinder need on 't;" and Dinah
stalked indignantly about, while Miss Ophelia piled and sorted
dishes, emptied dozens of scattering bowls of sugar into one
receptacle, sorted napkins, table-cloths, and towels, for washing;
washing, wiping, and arranging with her own hands, and with a speed
and alacrity which perfectly amazed Dinah.
"Lor now! if dat ar de way dem northern ladies do, dey an't
ladies, nohow," she said to some of her satellites, when at a safe
hearing distance. "I has things as straight as anybody, when my
clarin' up times comes; but I don't want ladies round, a henderin',
and getting my things all where I can't find 'em."
 Uncle Tom's Cabin |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: alive, or otherwise by their nearest relations. But with due
deference to so excellent a friend, and so deserving a patriot, I
cannot be altogether in his sentiments; for as to the males, my
American acquaintance assured me from frequent experience, that
their flesh was generally tough and lean, like that of our
school-boys, by continual exercise, and their taste disagreeable,
and to fatten them would not answer the charge. Then as to the
females, it would, I think, with humble submission, be a loss to
the publick, because they soon would become breeders themselves:
And besides, it is not improbable that some scrupulous people
might be apt to censure such a practice, (although indeed very
 A Modest Proposal |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Princess of Parms by Edgar Rice Burroughs: were taller than others; older, I presumed.
I saw no signs of extreme age among them, nor is there any
appreciable difference in their appearance from the age of
maturity, about forty, until, at about the age of one thousand
years, they go voluntarily upon their last strange pilgrimage
down the river Iss, which leads no living Martian knows
whither and from whose bosom no Martian has ever returned,
or would be allowed to live did he return after once embarking
upon its cold, dark waters.
Only about one Martian in a thousand dies of sickness or
disease, and possibly about twenty take the voluntary pilgrimage.
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