| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Octopus by Frank Norris: are to travel--so many places, Baden, Homburg, Spa, the Tyrol.
Won't it be gay?"
Presley assented in meaningless words. He sipped his wine
mechanically, looking about that marvellous room, with its
subdued saffron lights, its glitter of glass and silver, its
beautiful women in their elaborate toilets, its deft, correct
servants; its array of tableware--cut glass, chased silver, and
Dresden crockery. It was Wealth, in all its outward and visible
forms, the signs of an opulence so great that it need never be
husbanded. It was the home of a railway "Magnate," a Railroad
King. For this, then, the farmers paid. It was for this that S.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Cavalry General by Xenophon: freebooter is no less natural and appropriate to landsmen--I do not
say, to those who can till and gather in the fruit of their fields,
but to those who find themselves deprived of sustenance; since there
is no alternative--either men must till their fields or live on the
tillage of others, otherwise how will they find the means either of
living or of obtaining peace?[11]
[11] Cf. "Econ." v. 7.
Here, too, is a maxim to engrave upon the memory: in charging a
superior force, never to leave a difficult tract of ground in the rear
of your attack, since there is all the difference in the world between
a stumble in flight and a stumble in pursuit.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Happy Prince and Other Tales by Oscar Wilde: took the chair at a meeting some time ago, and we passed
resolutions condemning everything that we did not like. However,
they did not seem to have much effect. Now I go in for
domesticity, and look after my family."
"I am made for public life," said the Rocket, "and so are all my
relations, even the humblest of them. Whenever we appear we excite
great attention. I have not actually appeared myself, but when I
do so it will be a magnificent sight. As for domesticity, it ages
one rapidly, and distracts one's mind from higher things."
"Ah! the higher things of life, how fine they are!" said the Duck;
"and that reminds me how hungry I feel": and she swam away down
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