| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Reflected shines the eternal light of Truth,
As from a mirror! All the means of action--
The shapeless masses, the materials--
Lie everywhere about us. What we need
Is the celestial fire to change the flint
Into transparent crystal, bright and clear.
That fire is genius! The rude peasant sits
At evening in his smoky cot, and draws
With charcoal uncouth figures on the wall.
The son of genius comes, foot-sore with travel,
And begs a shelter from the inclement night.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: "You'd change your mind," said Wilson, with irritated bluntness,
"if you knew the entire scheme instead of only part of it."
"Well," said the constable, pensively, "I had the idea that
it wouldn't work, and up to now I'm right anyway."
"Very well, then, let it stand at that, and give it a further show.
It has worked at least as well as your own methods, you perceive."
The constable hadn't anything handy to hit back with,
so he discharged a discontented sniff, and said nothing.
After the night that Wilson had partly revealed his scheme
at his house, Tom had tried for several days to guess out the
secret of the rest of it, but had failed. Then it occurred to
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: dung of cattle the road that crossed that desert, now descending
towards the sea, then rising landward according to either the fall of
the ground or the necessity of rounding some breastwork of rock. By
mid-day, we were only half way.
"We will stop to rest over there," I said, pointing to a promontory of
rocks sufficiently high to make it probable we should find a grotto.
The fisherman, who heard me and saw the direction in which I pointed,
shook his head, and said,--
"Some one is there. All those who come from the village of Batz to
Croisic, or from Croisic to Batz, go round that place; they never pass
it."
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