| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith: he wandered too near; "or I'll smash ye!" The next instant she
would be dodging behind the cart out of the way of Stumpy's
lowered horns, with a scream as natural and as uncontrollable as
that of a schoolgirl over a mouse. When he stood in the path
cleared of snow from house to stable door, with head down,
prepared to dispute every inch of the way with her, she would
tramp yards around him, up to her knees in the drift, rather than
face his obstinate front.
The basest of ingratitude actuated the goat. When the accident
occurred that gained him his sobriquet and lost him his tail, it
was Tom's quickness of hand alone that saved the remainder of his
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: despotism, and of arbitrary regal power, which M. de Tocqueville has
set forth in a book which I shall have occasion often to quote. To
it is owing, too, that longing, which seems to us childish, after
ancient forms, etiquettes, dignities, court costumes, formalities
diplomatic, legal, ecclesiastical. Men clung to them as to
keepsakes of the past--revered relics of more intelligible and
better-ordered times. If the spirit had been beaten out of them in
a century of battle, that was all the more reason for keeping up the
letter. They had had a meaning once, a life once; perhaps there was
a little life left in them still; perhaps the dry bones would clothe
themselves with flesh once more, and stand upon their feet. At
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift: Look back with joy where she has gone,
And therefore goes with courage on.
She at your sickly couch will wait,
And guide you to a better state.
O then, whatever heav'n intends,
Take pity on your pitying friends;
Nor let your ills affect your mind,
To fancy they can be unkind;
Me, surely me, you ought to spare,
Who gladly would your sufferings share;
Or give my scrap of life to you,
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