| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Sanitary and Social Lectures by Charles Kingsley: I only entreat you to believe me, that by helping to educate the
boys, or even (when old enough), by taking a class (as I have seen
done with admirable effect) of grown-up lads, you may influence
for ever not only the happiness of your pupils, but of the girls
whom they will hereafter marry. It will be a boon to your own sex
as well as to ours to teach them courtesy, self-restraint,
reverence for physical weakness, admiration of tenderness and
gentleness; and it is one which only a lady can bestow. Only by
being accustomed in youth to converse with ladies, will the boy
learn to treat hereafter his sweetheart or his wife like a
gentleman. There is a latent chivalry, doubt it not, in the heart
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: drop the war where it is? Or would you prosecute it in future
with elder-stalk squirts charged with rosewater? Would you deal
lighter blows rather than heavier ones? Would you give up the
contest leaving any available means unapplied? I am in no
boastful mood. I shall not do more than I can, and I shall do all
I can, to save the government, which is my sworn duty, as well as
my personal inclination. I shall do nothing in malice. What I
deal with is too vast for malicious dealing."
The President could afford to overlook the abuse of hostile
newspapers, but he also had to meet the criticisms of
over-zealous Republicans. The prominent Republican editor, Horace
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde: GERALD. Dear mother, how can you say so? Of course Lord
Illingworth is awfully clever and that sort of thing. There is
nothing Lord Illingworth doesn't know.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. My dear boy!
GERALD. He knows more about life than any one I have ever met. I
feel an awful duffer when I am with you, Lord Illingworth. Of
course, I have had so few advantages. I have not been to Eton or
Oxford like other chaps. But Lord Illingworth doesn't seem to mind
that. He has been awfully good to me, mother.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Lord Illingworth may change his mind. He may not
really want you as his secretary.
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