| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: the only remaining specimen; for Turkey and Egypt are too amenable
of late years to the influence of the free nations to be counted as
despotisms pure and simple--despotisms in which men, instead of
worshipping a God-man, worship the hideous counterfeit, a Man-god--a
poor human being endowed by public opinion with the powers of deity,
while he is the slave of all the weaknesses of humanity. But such,
as an historic fact, has been the last stage of every civilisation--
even that of Rome, which ripened itself upon this earth the last in
ancient times, and, I had almost said, until this very day, except
among the men who speak Teutonic tongues, and who have preserved
through all temptations, and reasserted through all dangers, the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells: they found; one day for the galleries at Florence--"from what I
hear," said the young man, "it is barely enough,"--and the rest
at Rome. He talked of Rome very pleasantly; he was evidently quite
well read, and he quoted Horace about Soracte. Miss Winchelsea had
"done" that book of Horace for her matriculation, and was delighted
to cap his quotation. It gave a sort of tone to things, this
incident--a touch of refinement to mere chatting. Fanny expressed
a few emotions, and Helen interpolated a few sensible remarks, but
the bulk of the talk on the girls' side naturally fell to Miss
Winchelsea.
Before they reached Rome this young man was tacitly of their party.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Poor and Proud by Oliver Optic: energy and skill of a true bruiser. Tommy was now fully roused,
and his blows, which were strictly in self-defense, fell rapidly
and heavily on the head of his assailant. But I am not going to
give my young readers the particulars of the fight; and I would
not have let Tommy engage in such a scene, were it not to show up
Johnny as he was, and finish the portrait of him which I had
outlined; to show the difference between the noble, generous,
brave, and true-hearted boy, and the little bully, whom all my
young friends have seen and despised.
In something less than two minutes, Johnny Grippen, after
muttering "foul play," backed out with bloody nose, as completely
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