| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells: She stood for a time looking at the dry limbs and still human
face of that desiccated unwrapped mummy from the very beginnings
of social life. It looked very patient, she thought, and a
little self-satisfied. It looked as if it had taken its world
for granted and prospered on that assumption--a world in which
children were trained to obey their elders and the wills of women
over-ruled as a matter of course. It was wonderful to think this
thing had lived, had felt and suffered. Perhaps once it had
desired some other human being intolerably. Perhaps some one had
kissed the brow that was now so cadaverous, rubbed that sunken
cheek with loving fingers, held that stringy neck with
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: that 'sweet reasonableness' of which Arnold spoke so wisely, and,
alas! to so little effect. The author of the ORIGIN OF SPECIES
had, at any rate, the philosophic temper. If one contemplates the
ordinary pulpits and platforms of England, one can but feel the
contempt of Julian, or the indifference of Montaigne. We are
dominated by the fanatic, whose worst vice is his sincerity.
Anything approaching to the free play of the mind is practically
unknown amongst us. People cry out against the sinner, yet it is
not the sinful, but the stupid, who are our shame. There is no sin
except stupidity.
ERNEST. Ah! what an antinomian you are!
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Dreams by Olive Schreiner: cried.
Wisdom shook his head.
"He will never see her, never hold her. The time is not yet."
"Then there is no hope?" cried the hunter.
"There is this," said Wisdom: "Some men have climbed on those mountains;
circle above circle of bare rock they have scaled; and, wandering there, in
those high regions, some have chanced to pick up on the ground one white
silver feather, dropped from the wing of Truth. And it shall come to
pass," said the old man, raising himself prophetically and pointing with
his finger to the sky, "it shall come to pass, that when enough of those
silver feathers shall have been gathered by the hands of men, and shall
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