| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: rise almost as exclusively among the wealthy, cultured, and brain-labouring
classes, where alone, at the present day, the danger of enervation through
non-employment, and of degeneration through dependence on the sex function
exists. The female labour movement of our day is, in its ultimate essence,
an endeavour on the part of a section of the race to save itself from
inactivity and degeneration, and this, even at the immediate cost of most
heavy loss in material comfort and ease to the individuals composing it.
The male labour movement is, directly and in the first place, material;
and, or at least superficially, more or less self-seeking, though its
ultimate reaction on society by saving the poorer members from degradation
and dependency and want is undoubtedly wholly social and absolutely
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett: she'd always stayed ashore and held her friends. Some went out o'
mere curiosity, I don't doubt,--there's always such to every
funeral; but most had real feelin', and went purpose to show it.
She'd got most o' the wild sparrows as tame as could be, livin' out
there so long among 'em, and one flew right in and lit on the
coffin an' begun to sing while Mr. Dimmick was speakin'. He was
put out by it, an' acted as if he didn't know whether to stop or go
on. I may have been prejudiced, but I wa'n't the only one thought
the poor little bird done the best of the two."
"What became o' the man that treated her so, did you ever
hear?" asked Mrs. Fosdick. "I know he lived up to Massachusetts
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Research Magnificent by H. G. Wells: and as a thing to be got rid of altogether. It seemed to him that
to feel fear was to fall short of aristocracy, and in spite of the
deep dreads and disgusts that haunted his mind, he set about the
business of its subjugation as if it were a spiritual amputation.
But as he emerged from the egotism of adolescence he came to realize
that this was too comprehensive an operation; every one feels fear,
and your true aristocrat is not one who has eliminated, but one who
controls or ignores it. Brave men are men who do things when they
are afraid to do them, just as Nelson, even when he was seasick, and
he was frequently seasick, was still master of the sea. Benham
developed two leading ideas about fear; one that it is worse at the
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