| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner: there beside him.
"And when the evening came, he went back to his chapel. Many were absent,
but the elders sat in their places, and his wife also was there. And the
light shone on the empty benches. And when the time came he opened the old
book of the Jews; and he turned the leaves and read:--'If thou forbear to
deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be
slain; if thou sayest, 'Behold we knew it not!' Doth not he that pondereth
the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth he not know it?'
"And he said, 'This morning we considered the evils this land is suffering
under at the hands of men whose aim is the attainment of wealth and power.
Tonight we shall look at our own share in the matter. I think we shall
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: children. Accepting the invitation with evident pleasure, he
stepped forward and began a simple address that quickly charmed
the roomful of youngsters into silence. His language was
singularly beautiful, his voice musical with deep feeling. The
faces of his little listeners drooped into sad earnestness at his
words of warning, and brightened again when he spoke of cheerful
promises. "Go on! Oh, do go on!" they begged when at last he
tried to stop. As he left the room somebody asked his name.
"Abraham Lincoln, from Illinois," was the courteous reply.
VI. THE NEW PRESIDENT
Lincoln's great skill and wisdom in his debate with Douglas
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Recruit by Honore de Balzac: various pretexts to the principal families of Carentan, to all of whom
he mentioned that Madame de Dey, in spite of her illness, would
receive her friends that evening. Matching his own craft against those
wily Norman minds, he replied to the questions put to him on the
nature of Madame de Dey's illness in a manner that hoodwinked the
community. He related to a gouty old dame, that Madame de Dey had
almost died of a sudden attack of gout in the stomach, but had been
relieved by a remedy which the famous doctor, Tronchin, had once
recommended to her,--namely, to apply the skin of a freshly-flayed
hare on the pit of the stomach, and to remain in bed without making
the slightest movement for two days. This tale had prodigious success,
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