| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: this, and many others, I omit, being studious of brevity.
Supposing that one thousand families in this city, would be
constant customers for infants flesh, besides others who might
have it at merry meetings, particularly at weddings and
christenings, I compute that Dublin would take off annually about
twenty thousand carcasses; and the rest of the kingdom (where
probably they will be sold somewhat cheaper) the remaining eighty
thousand.
I can think of no one objection, that will possibly be raised
against this proposal, unless it should be urged, that the number
of people will be thereby much lessened in the kingdom. This I
A Modest Proposal |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Shakespeare: And truly not the morning sun of heaven
Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,
Nor that full star that ushers in the even,
Doth half that glory to the sober west,
As those two mourning eyes become thy face:
O! let it then as well beseem thy heart
To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace,
And suit thy pity like in every part.
Then will I swear beauty herself is black,
And all they foul that thy complexion lack.
CXXXIII
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: unless your interest be exceedingly eager and your nerves unusually
strong, I honestly add, that I advise you NOT to pass a night in
that house.
"My interest IS exceedingly keen," said I; "and though only a
coward will boast of his nerves in situations wholly unfamiliar to
him, yet my nerves have been seasoned in such variety of danger
that I have the right to rely on them,--even in a haunted house."
Mr. J---- said very little more; he took the keys of the house out
of his bureau, gave them to me,--and, thanking him cordially for
his frankness, and his urbane concession to my wish, I carried off
my prize.
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