| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner: words: You will give everything, and expect nothing. The knowledge that
you are serving me is to be your reward; and you will have that. You will
serve me, and greatly. The reasons I have for marrying you I need not
inform you of now; you will probably discover some of them before long."
"I only want to be of some use to you," he said.
It seemed to Gregory that there were pulses in the soles of his feet, and
the ground shimmered as on a summer's day. They walked round the foot of
the kopje and past the Kaffer huts. An old Kaffer maid knelt at the door
of one grinding mealies. That she should see him walking so made his heart
beat so fast, that the hand on his arm felt its pulsation. It seemed that
she must envy him.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: nor well supplied with the ready? Listen, I have a hand-cart
downstairs which I have hired for two sous an hour; it will hold
all our goods; if you like, we will try to find lodgings
together, since we are both turned out of this. It is not the
earthly paradise, when all is said and done.'
" 'I know that, my good Bourgeat,' said I. 'But I am in a great
fix. I have a trunk downstairs with a hundred francs' worth of
linen in it, out of which I could pay the landlord and all I owe
to the porter, and I have not a hundred sous.'
" 'Pooh! I have a few dibs,' replied Bourgeat joyfully, and he
pulled out a greasy old leather purse. 'Keep your linen.'
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Apology by Plato: then to the craftsmen, but always with the same result--he found that they
knew nothing, or hardly anything more than himself; and that the little
advantage which in some cases they possessed was more than counter-balanced
by their conceit of knowledge. He knew nothing, and knew that he knew
nothing: they knew little or nothing, and imagined that they knew all
things. Thus he had passed his life as a sort of missionary in detecting
the pretended wisdom of mankind; and this occupation had quite absorbed him
and taken him away both from public and private affairs. Young men of the
richer sort had made a pastime of the same pursuit, 'which was not
unamusing.' And hence bitter enmities had arisen; the professors of
knowledge had revenged themselves by calling him a villainous corrupter of
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