| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: are dropped in the darkness somewhere between midnight and dawn.
When you open your window-shutters the next morning, you see that
the village is a disconsolate hamlet, scattered along the track as
if it had been shaken by chance from an open freight-car; it
consists of twenty houses, three shops, and a discouraged church
perched upon a little hillock like a solitary mourner on the
anxious seat. The one comfortable and prosperous feature in the
countenance of Metapedia is the house of the Ristigouche Salmon
Club--an old-fashioned mansion, with broad, white piazza, looking
over rich meadow-lands. Here it was that I found my friend
Favonius, president of solemn societies, pillar of church and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister: It was when his eyes caught sight of the music that the young man felt
again at ease, and his vivacity returned to him. Leaving his chair, he
began enthusiastically to examine the tall piles that filled one side of
the room. The volumes lay piled and scattered everywhere, making a
pleasant disorder; and, as perfume comes from a flower, memories of
singers and chandeliers rose bright from the printed names. Norma,
Tancredi, Don Pasquale, La Vestale, dim lights in the fashions of to-day,
sparkled upon the exploring Gaston, conjuring the radiant halls of Europe
before him. "The Barber of Seville!" he presently exclaimed. "And I
happened to hear it in Seville."
But Seville's name brought over the Padre a new rush of home thoughts.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Wyoming by William MacLeod Raine: take a hand.
She had acted on generous impulse, and the unforeseen result had
been to save this desperado from justice. But the worst of it was
that she could not find it in her heart to regret it. Granted
that he was a villain, double-dyed and beyond hope, yet he was
the home of such courage, such virility, that her unconsenting
admiration went out in spite of herself. He was, at any rate, a
MAN, square-jawed, resolute, implacable. In the sinuous trail of
his life might lie arson, robbery, murder, but he still held to
that dynamic spark of self-respect that is akin to the divine.
Nor was it possible to believe that those unblinking gray eyes,
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