| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift: standing on its head; and pray what is a man but a topsy-turvy
creature, his animal faculties perpetually mounted on his rational,
his head where his heels should be, grovelling on the earth? And
yet, with all his faults, he sets up to be a universal reformer and
corrector of abuses, a remover of grievances, rakes into every
slut's corner of nature, bringing hidden corruptions to the light,
and raises a mighty dust where there was none before, sharing
deeply all the while in the very same pollutions he pretends to
sweep away. His last days are spent in slavery to women, and
generally the least deserving; till, worn to the stumps, like his
brother besom, he is either kicked out of doors, or made use of to
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde: dull season, hasn't it?
DUMBY. Dreadfully dull! Dreadfully dull!
MR. COWPER-COWPER. Good evening, Mr. Dumby. I suppose this will
be the last ball of the season?
DUMBY. Oh, I think not. There'll probably be two more. [Wanders
back to LADY PLYMDALE.]
PARKER. Mr. Rufford. Lady Jedburgh and Miss Graham. Mr. Hopper.
[These people enter as announced.]
HOPPER. How do you do, Lady Windermere? How do you do, Duchess?
[Bows to LADY AGATHA.]
DUCHESS OF BERWICK. Dear Mr. Hopper, how nice of you to come so
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Land of Footprints by Stewart Edward White: forest on the first gentle slopes of Kenia's ranges. The clearing
is a very large one, and on it the grass grows green and short,
like a lawn. It resembles, as much as anything else, the rolling,
beautiful downs of a first-class country club, and the illusion
is enhanced by the Commissioner's house among some trees atop a
hill. Well-kept roadways railed with rustic fences lead from the
house to the native quarters lying in the hollow and to the
Government offices atop another hill. Then also there are the
quarters of the Nubian troops; round low houses with conical
grass roofs.
These, and the presence everywhere of savages, rather take away
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