The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Bucky O'Connor by William MacLeod Raine: Probably the men he wanted had already slipped down to the plains
and across to Mexico. If not, they might play hide and seek with
him a month in the recesses of these unknown mountains.
Next morning the sheriff struck a telephone wire, tapped it, got
Sabin on the line, told him of his failure and that he was
returning to Tucson. About the middle of the afternoon the
dispirited posse reached its sidetracked special.
A young man lay stretched full length on the loading board, with
a broad-brimmed felt hat over his eyes. He wore a gray flannel
shirt and corduroy trousers thrust into half-leg laced boots. At
the sound of voices he turned lazily on his side and watched the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: practice virtue. He may be rude in thought and character, but he
will unconsciously gravitate toward what is right. Other virtues
can scarcely thrive without a fine natural organization and a
happy training. But the most neglected and ungifted of men may
make a beginning with faith. Other virtues want civilization, a
certain amount of knowledge, a few books; but in half-brutal
countenances faith will light up a glimmer of nobleness. The
savage, who can do little else, can wonder and worship and
enthusiastically obey. He who cannot know what is right can know
that some one else knows; he who has no law may still have a
master; he who is incapable of justice may be capable of
 The Unseen World and Other Essays |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac: defects--without manners and without stays; they are not beautiful.
"We saw a great deal of mud, a great deal of dirt, under the waters of
the world when we were aground for a time on the shoals of the Maison
Vauquer.--What we saw there was nothing. Since I have gone into high
society, I have seen monsters dressed in satin, Michonneaus in white
gloves, Poirets bedizened with orders, fine gentlemen doing more
usurious business than old Gobseck! To the shame of mankind, when I
have wanted to shake hands with Virtue, I have found her shivering in
a loft, persecuted by calumny, half-starving on a income or a salary
of fifteen hundred francs a year, and regarded as crazy, or eccentric,
or imbecile.
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