| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: they must take advantage of this docility to teach children how to
live properly or the children will not survive. The difficulty is to
know where to stop. To illustrate this, let us consider the main
danger of childish docility and parental officiousness.
The Abuse of Docility
Docility may survive as a lazy habit long after it has ceased to be a
beneficial instinct. If you catch a child when it is young enough to
be instinctively docile, and keep it in a condition of unremitted
tutelage under the nurserymaid, the governess, the preparatory school,
the secondary school, and the university, until it is an adult, you
will produce, not a self-reliant, free, fully matured human being, but
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Wife, et al by Anton Chekhov: a pupil of the veterinary institute, and a nobleman by birth,
Pobyedimsky!"
This politeness on the part of my tutor pleased my mother very
much. She gave a smile, and waited in thrilled suspense to hear
what clever thing he would say next; but my tutor, expecting his
dignified address to be answered with equal dignity -- that is,
that my uncle would say "H'm!" like a general and hold out two
fingers -- was greatly confused and abashed when the latter
laughed genially and shook hands with him. He muttered something
incoherent, cleared his throat, and walked away.
"Come! isn't that charming?" laughed my uncle. "Just look! he has
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Poor and Proud by Oliver Optic: destiny in the hands of Heaven. For an hour she conversed with
Katy on this subject, and succeeded in giving her some new views
in relation to the meaning of the words she had so often repeated
that afternoon.
The poor girl felt as she had never felt before. Upon her
devolved the responsibility of providing for her mother. She had
no other friend, and that day seemed to open a new era in her
existence. She felt strong for the work before her, and resolved
to lose not a single day in putting her resolution into
operation. The teachings of her mother, breathing a spirit of
piety and resignation, were grateful to her heart, and added new
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