| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: died and did not turn to a fly: but if it had lived, it had doubtless turned
to one of those flies that some call Flies of prey, which those that walk
by the rivers may, in summer, see fasten on smaller flies, and, I think,
make them their food. And 'tis observable, that as there be these flies of
prey, which be very large; so there be others, very little, created, I think,
only to feed them, and breed out of I know not what; whose life, they
say, nature intended not to exceed an hour; and yet that life is thus
made shorter by other flies, or accident.
'Tis endless to tell you what the curious searchers into nature's
productions have observed of these worms and flies: but yet I shall tell
you what Aldrovandus, our Topsel, and others, say of the Palmer-worm,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Arizona Nights by Stewart Edward White: only at the man himself, but also at the whole way things had
turned out. I don't believe the least notion of our predicament
had come to any of us. All we knew yet was that we had been done
up, and we were hostile about it.
But at camp we found something to occupy us for the moment. Poor
Billy was not dead, as we had supposed, but very weak and sick,
and a hole square through him. When we returned he was
conscious, but that was about all. His eyes were shut, and he
was moaning. I tore open his shirt to stanch the blood. He felt
my hand and opened his eyes. They were glazed, and I don't think
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: it must be in its incubation or ever it IS, it must be confessed
that, unfortunately, everything in him was purely personal.
Isolated during his life by his egoism, that egoism is now
suicidal of his glory. On his tomb there is no proclaiming statue
to repeat to posterity the mysteries which genius seeks out at
its own cost.
But perhaps Desplein's genius was answerable for his beliefs, and
for that reason mortal. To him the terrestrial atmosphere was a
generative envelope; he saw the earth as an egg within its shell;
and not being able to determine whether the egg or the hen first
was, he would not recognize either the cock or the egg. He
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