| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Black Beauty by Anna Sewell: Don't you know that it is the worst thing in the world, next to wickedness?
-- and which does the most mischief heaven only knows. If people can say,
`Oh! I did not know, I did not mean any harm,' they think it is all right.
I suppose Martha Mulwash did not mean to kill that baby
when she dosed it with Dalby and soothing syrups; but she did kill it,
and was tried for manslaughter."
"And serve her right, too," said Tom. "A woman should not undertake to nurse
a tender little child without knowing what is good and what is bad for it."
"Bill Starkey," continued John, "did not mean to frighten his brother
into fits when he dressed up like a ghost and ran after him in the moonlight;
but he did; and that bright, handsome little fellow, that might have been
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: Ever your affectionate son,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO T. WATTS-DUNTON
SKERRYVORE, BOURNEMOUTH [SEPTEMBER 1886].
DEAR MR. WATTS, The sight of the last ATHENAEUM reminds me of you,
and of my debt, now too long due. I wish to thank you for your
notice of KIDNAPPED; and that not because it was kind, though for
that also I valued it, but in the same sense as I have thanked you
before now for a hundred articles on a hundred different writers.
A critic like you is one who fights the good fight, contending with
stupidity, and I would fain hope not all in vain; in my own case,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson: reeled and fell against the wall.
I knew too well what it must be. I turned and begged the
servants to relieve him. But they, with one accord, denied
the possibility of hope; the master had gone into the swamp,
they said, the master must die; all help was idle. Why
should I dwell upon his sufferings? I had him carried to a
bed, and watched beside him. He lay still, and at times
ground his teeth, and talked at times unintelligibly, only
that one word of hurry, hurry, coming distinctly to my ears,
and telling me that, even in the last struggle with the
powers of death, his mind was still tortured by his
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