| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: man's privacy covers more ground, and different ground as well. An
Englishman doesn't expect strangers to ask him questions of a guide-book
sort. For all such questions his English system provides perfectly
definite persons to answer. If you want to know where the ticket office
is, or where to take your baggage, or what time the train goes, or what
platform it starts from, or what towns it stops at, and what churches or
other buildings of interest are to be seen in those towns, there are
porters and guards and Bradshaws and guidebooks to tell you, and it's
they whom you are expected to consult, not any fellow-traveler who
happens to be at hand. If you ask him, you break the rules. Had my friend
said: "I am an American. Would you mind telling me what those buildings
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: food for grudges.
"We will never be a free nation until our navy surpasses England's. The
world will never be a free world until the seas and trade routes are free
to all, at all times, and without any menace, however benevolent.
"In conclusion ... allow me to again state that I write as one American
citizen to another with not the slightest desire to say anything that
may be personally obnoxious. My own ancestors were from England. My
personal relations with the Englishmen I have met have been very
pleasant. I can readily believe that there are no better people living,
but I feel so strongly on the subject, nationally--so bitterly opposed to
a continuance of England's sea control--so fearful that our people may be
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson: Of that best valour, Patience, bowed my head,
And with firm bosom and most steadfast eyes,
Strong in all high resolve, prepared to tread
The unlovely path that leads me toward the skies.
V.
Not undelightful, friend, our rustic ease
To grateful hearts; for by especial hap,
Deep nested in the hill's enormous lap,
With its own ring of walls and grove of trees,
Sits, in deep shelter, our small cottage - nor
Far-off is seen, rose carpeted and hung
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