| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: sometimes helped them; but you know that the mind will easily
straggle from the fingers, nor will you suspect that captivity and
absence from Nekayah could receive solace from silken flowers.
"Nor was much satisfaction to be hoped from their conversation:
for of what could they be expected to talk? They had seen nothing,
for they had lived from early youth in that narrow spot: of what
they had not seen they could have no knowledge, for they could not
read. They had no idea but of the few things that were within
their view, and had hardly names for anything but their clothes and
their food. As I bore a superior character, I was often called to
terminate their quarrels, which I decided as equitably as I could.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Cromwell by William Shakespeare: O God! had I but read this letter,
Then had I been free from the Lion's paw;
Deferring this to read until to morrow,
I spurned at joy, and did embrace my sorrow.
[Enter the Lieutenant of the Tower and officers.]
Now, master Lieutenant, when's this day of death?
LIEUTENANT.
Alas, my Lord, would I might never see it.
Here are the Dukes of Suffolk and of Norfolk,
Winchester, Bedford, and sir Richard Ratcliffe,
With others, but why they come I know not.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from From London to Land's End by Daniel Defoe: King William Rufus, but was not endowed or appointed till later
times by Cardinal Beaufort. Every traveller that knocks at the
door of this house in his way, and asks for it, claims the relief
of a piece of white bread and a cup of beer, and this donation is
still continued. A quantity of good beer is set apart every day to
be given away, and what is left is distributed to other poor, but
none of it kept to the next day.
How the revenues of this hospital, which should maintain the master
and thirty private gentlemen (whom they call Fellows, but ought to
call Brothers), is now reduced to maintain only fourteen, while the
master lives in a figure equal to the best gentleman in the
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