| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: too common notion that there is now, in England, a governing Norman
aristocracy, or that there has been one, at least since the year
1215, when Magna Charta was won from the Norman John by Normans and
by English alike. For the first victors at Hastings, like the first
conquistadores in America, perished, as the monk chronicles point
out, rapidly by their own crimes; and very few of our nobility can
trace their names back to the authentic Battle Abbey roll. The
great majority of the peers have sprung from, and all have
intermarried with, the Commons; and the peerage has been from the
first, and has become more and more as centuries have rolled on, the
prize of success in life.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: not be hidden. Her loyalty was strained to the breaking
point. She was too tender and true for anger, but she was
wounded almost beyond endurance.
Keene's restlessness increased. The intervening Thursday
was Thanksgiving Day; most of the boys had gone home; the
school had holiday. Early in the morning he came to me.
"Let us take our walk to-day. We have no work to do.
Come! In this clear, frosty air, Spy Rock will be glorious!"
"No," I answered, "this is no day for such an expedition.
This is the home day. Stay here and be happy with us all.
You owe this to love and friendship. You owe it to Dorothy
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: uplifted hand, as the Roman tribunes are depicted. This was a
magnificent spectacle: and yet there was but one spectator; the boy in
the ample coat, who stood quite quietly and picked his nose with his
finger.
Finally Ivan Ivanovitch took his hat. "You have behaved well, Ivan
Nikiforovitch, extremely well! I shall remember it."
"Go, Ivan Ivanovitch, go! and see that you don't come in my way: if
you do, I'll beat your ugly face to a jelly, Ivan Ivanovitch!"
"Take that, Ivan Nikiforovitch!" retorted Ivan Ivanovitch, making an
insulting gesture and banged the door, which squeaked and flew open
again behind him.
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
