The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Dreams by Olive Schreiner: have water"; and she took some in her hands, and fed me (I had been afraid
to drink of the water in Hell), and they gathered fruit for me, and gave it
me to eat. They said, "We shone long to make it ripen," and they laughed
together as they saw me eat it.
The man said, "He is very weary; he must sleep" (for I had not dared to
sleep in Hell), and he laid my head on his companion's knee and spread her
hair out over me. I slept, and all the while in my sleep I thought I heard
the birds calling across me. And when I woke it was like early morning,
with the dew on everything.
And the man took my hand and led me to a hidden spot among the rocks. The
ground was very hard, but out of it were sprouting tiny plants, and there
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: Smiling as smiles the fowler when flutters the bird to the gin,
And chose him a shining hook, (5) and viewed it with sedulous eye,
And breathed and burnished it well on the brawn of his naked thigh,
And set a mat for the gull, and bade him be merry and bide,
Like a man concerned for his guest, and the fishing, and nothing beside.
Now when Rahero was forth, he paused and hearkened, and heard
The gull jest in the house and the women laugh at his word;
And stealthily crossed to the side of the way, to the shady place
Where the basket hung on a mango; and craft transfigured his face.
Deftly he opened the basket, and took of the fat of the fish,
The cut of kings and chieftains, enough for a goodly dish.
 Ballads |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Horse's Tale by Mark Twain: "Don't ask foolish questions. It was an awful pace. For four
hours nothing happened, and not a word said, except that now and
then she said, 'Keep it up, Boy, keep it up, sweetheart; we'll save
him!' I kept it up. Well, when the dark shut down, in the rugged
hills, that poor little chap had been tearing around in the saddle
all day, and I noticed by the slack knee-pressure that she was
tired and tottery, and I got dreadfully afraid; but every time I
tried to slow down and let her go to sleep, so I could stop, she
hurried me up again; and so, sure enough, at last over she went!
"Ah, that was a fix to be in I for she lay there and didn't stir,
and what was I to do? I couldn't leave her to fetch help, on
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