| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: "Aye, blacksmith, it is the one; aye, man, it is unsmoothable; for
though thou only see'st it here in my flesh, it has worked down into
the bone of my skull--THAT is all wrinkles! But, away with child's
play; no more gaffs and pikes to-day. Look ye here!" jingling the
leathern bag, as if it were full of gold coins. "I, too, want a
harpoon made; one that a thousand yoke of fiends could not part,
Perth; something that will stick in a whale like his own fin-bone.
There's the stuff," flinging the pouch upon the anvil. "Look ye,
blacksmith, these are the gathered nail-stubbs of the steel shoes of
racing horses."
"Horse-shoe stubbs, sir? Why, Captain Ahab, thou hast here, then,
Moby Dick |
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: abroad, I do not yet see the absolute necessity of extirpating the
Christian religion from among us.
This perhaps may appear too great a paradox even for our wise and
paxodoxical age to endure; therefore I shall handle it with all
tenderness, and with the utmost deference to that great and
profound majority which is of another sentiment.
And yet the curious may please to observe, how much the genius of a
nation is liable to alter in half an age. I have heard it affirmed
for certain by some very odd people, that the contrary opinion was
even in their memories as much in vogue as the other is now; and
that a project for the abolishing of Christianity would then have
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Second Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause
of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself
should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less
fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray
to the same God; and each invokes his aid against the other.
It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's
assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces;
but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both
could not be answered--that of neither has been answered fully.
The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto the world because
of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe
Second Inaugural Address |
