| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Pocket Diary Found in the Snow by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: November to visit me. She should have reached here on the evening
of the 18th, and she has not arrived yet. I did not receive this
letter until to-day."
"Did you expect the young lady?"
"I knew only that she would arrive sometime before the third of
December. That date is her twenty-fourth birthday and she was to
celebrate it here."
"Did she not usually announce her coming to you?"
"No, she liked to surprise me. Three days ago I sent her a telegram
asking her to bring certain necessary papers with her. This brought
the answer from the overseer of her estate, an answer which has
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Mistress Wilding by Rafael Sabatini: these who came should chance to be enemies they might ride on without
looking to right or left. It was so slender a hope that Wilding looked
to the priming of his pistols, whilst Trenchard, who had none, loosened
his sword in its scabbard. Nearer came the riders.
"There are not more than three," whispered Trenchard, who had been
listening intently, and Mr. Wilding nodded, but said nothing.
Another moment and the little party was abreast of those watchers; a
dark brown riding-habit flashed into their line of vision, and a blue
one laced with gold. At sight of the first Mr. Wilding's eyelids
flickered; he had recognized it for Ruth's, with whom rode Diana,
whilst some twenty paces or so behind came Jerry, the groom. They
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Crowd by Gustave le Bon: cost of revolutions and repeated massacres. It is fortunate for
the progress of civilisation that the power of crowds only began
to exist when the great discoveries of science and industry had
already been effected.
5. THE MORALITY OF CROWDS.
Taking the word "morality" to mean constant respect for certain
social conventions, and the permanent repression of selfish
impulses, it is quite evident that crowds are too impulsive and
too mobile to be moral. If, however, we include in the term
morality the transitory display of certain qualities such as
abnegation, self-sacrifice, disinterestedness, devotion, and the
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