| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson: At this most welcome word, the young man's heart exulted; and
in the hope, pride, and self-esteem that kindled with the
very thought of service, he forgot to dwell upon the lady's
jest. 'Can you ask?' he cried. 'What is there that I can
do? Only tell me that.'
With signs of an emotion that was certainly unfeigned, the
fair Cuban laid her hand upon the box. 'This box,' she said,
'contains my jewels, papers, and clothes; all, in a word,
that still connects me with Cuba and my dreadful past. They
must now be smuggled out of England; or, by the opinion of my
lawyer, I am lost beyond remedy. To-morrow, on board the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells: as though she had just discovered herself for the first
time--discovered herself as a sleep-walker might do, abruptly
among dangers, hindrances, and perplexities, on the verge of a
cardinal crisis.
The life of a girl presented itself to her as something happy and
heedless and unthinking, yet really guided and controlled by
others, and going on amidst unsuspected screens and concealments.
And in its way it was very well. Then suddenly with a rush came
reality, came "growing up"; a hasty imperative appeal for
seriousness, for supreme seriousness. The Ralphs and Mannings
and Fortescues came down upon the raw inexperience, upon the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: called foolish, curious, despiteful, and a sower of sedition;
and one day, perhaps, for all he is now nameless, he may be
attainted of treason. Yet he has "determined to obey God,
notwithstanding that the world shall rage thereat." Finally,
he makes some excuse for the anonymous appearance of this
first instalment: it is his purpose thrice to blow the
trumpet in this matter, if God so permit; twice he intends to
do it without name; but at the last blast to take the odium
upon himself, that all others may be purged.
Thus he ends the preface, and enters upon his argument with a
secondary title: "The First Blast to awake Women degenerate."
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