| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner: choose to sell out at the right time, well, they didn't. "It's the shares
that you sell, not the shares you keep, that make the money."
But if they couldn't sell them?
Here Peter Halket hesitated.--Well, the British Government would have to
buy them, if they were so bad no one else would; and then no one would
lose. "The British Government can't let British share-holders suffer."
He'd heard that often enough. The British taxpayer would have to pay for
the Chartered Company, for the soldiers, and all the other things, if IT
couldn't, and take over the shares if it went smash, because there were
lords and dukes and princes connected with it. And why shouldn't they pay
for his company? He would have a lord in it too!
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: SOCRATES: Leaving the care of our bodies and of our properties to others?
ALCIBIADES: Very good.
SOCRATES: But how can we have a perfect knowledge of the things of the
soul?--For if we know them, then I suppose we shall know ourselves. Can we
really be ignorant of the excellent meaning of the Delphian inscription, of
which we were just now speaking?
ALCIBIADES: What have you in your thoughts, Socrates?
SOCRATES: I will tell you what I suspect to be the meaning and lesson of
that inscription. Let me take an illustration from sight, which I imagine
to be the only one suitable to my purpose.
ALCIBIADES: What do you mean?
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Rescue by Joseph Conrad: enough. I am not anxious to knock about for days in an open boat,
but--let me fill my fresh-water breaker, Captain, and I will be
off."
"Nonsense," said Lingard, sharply. "You've got to come with me to
show the place and--and help. I'll take your boat in tow."
Carter did not seem convinced. Lingard laid a heavy hand on his
shoulder.
"Look here, young fellow. I am Tom Lingard and there's not a
white man among these islands, and very few natives, that have
not heard of me. My luck brought you into my ship--and now I've
got you, you must stay. You must!"
The Rescue |
