| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner: feet touch, every son among us might see ever blazoned above his head that
banner, and below it the great order:--"By this sign, Conquer!"--and that
the pirate flag which some men now wave in its place, may be torn down and
furled for ever! Shall I condone the action of some, simply because they
happen to be of my own race, when in Bushman or Hottentot I would condemn
it? Shall men belonging to one of the mightiest races of earth, creep
softly on their bellies, to attack an unwarned neighbour; when even the
Kaffir has again and again given notice of war, saying, 'Be ready, on such
and such a day I come to fight you?' Is England's power so broken, and our
race so enfeebled, that we dare no longer to proclaim war; but must creep
silently upon our bellies in the dark to stab, like a subject people to
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: "Well, you must hide yourself, that's all."
Fifty days later, one morning before dawn, the Comte de Trailles went
to the rue de Varennes, mysteriously in a hired cab. At the gate of
the ministry of Public Works, he sent the cab away, looked about him
to see that he was not watched, and then waited in a little salon on
the first floor until Rastignac should awake. A few moments later the
valet who had taken in his card ushered Maxime into the minister's
bed-chamber, where that statesman was making his morning toilet.
"My dear Maxime," said the latter, "I can tell you a secret which will
be in the newspapers two days hence, and which, meantime, you can turn
to your own profit. That poor Charles Keller, who danced the mazurka
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Options by O. Henry: "Shane walks by with his big laugh.
"'Business looking up any?' he asks.
"'It's looking at itself right now,' says I.
"By-and-by a kind of a murmur goes through the crowd. The women had
looked into the magic crystal and seen that they were beautiful, and
was confiding the secret to the men. The men seemed to be urging the
lack of money and the hard times just before the election, but their
excuses didn't go.
"Then was my time.
"I called McClintock away from an animated conversation with his mules
and told him to do some interpreting.
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