| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: individual. Such arguments might be kept up indefinitely as regards an
act of any country. A responsible nation must bear the praise or odium
that attaches to any national action. If England has experienced a change
of heart it has occurred since the days of the Boer Republic--as wanton a
steal as Belgium, with even less excuse, and attended with sufficient
brutality for all practical purposes....
"She has done us many an ill turn gratuitously and not a single good turn
that was not dictated by selfish policy or jealousy of others. She has
shown herself, up till yesterday at least, grasping and unscrupulous. She
is no worse than the others probably--possibly even better--but it would
be doing our country an ill turn to persuade its citizens that England
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: look through a window into other people's lives; and I think Dickens
has somewhere enlarged on the same text. The subject, at least, is
one that I am seldom weary of entertaining. I remember, night after
night, at Brussels, watching a good family sup together, make merry,
and retire to rest; and night after night I waited to see the candles
lit, and the salad made, and the last salutations dutifully
exchanged, without any abatement of interest. Night after night I
found the scene rivet my attention and keep me awake in bed with all
manner of quaint imaginations. Much of the pleasure of the ARABIAN
NIGHTS hinges upon this Asmodean interest; and we are not weary of
lifting other people's roofs, and going about behind the scenes of
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley: and lazy, and thought about nothing but eating and drinking, till
people began to despise him more and more. And one day he left
the dungeon of Analysis so ill guarded, that Analysis got out and
ran away. Great was the hue and cry after him; and terribly would
he have been punished had he been caught. But, lo and behold,
folks had grown so disgusted with Synthesis that they began to
take the part of Analysis. Poor men hid him in their cottages,
and scholars in their studies. And when war arose about him,--and
terrible wars did arise,--good kings, wise statesmen, gallant
soldiers, spent their treasure and their lives in fighting for
him. All honest folk welcomed him, because he was honest; and all
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