| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: and a bursting weight of pain at the base of the skull made him
reel like a drunken man. He staggered to the little mirror
nailed upon the wall, and looked. How his eyes glowed;---and
there was blood in his mouth! He felt his pulse spasmodic,
terribly rapid. Could it possibly---? ... No: this must be
some pernicious malarial fever! The Creole does not easily fall
a prey to the great tropical malady,---unless after a long
absence in other climates. True! he had been four years in the
army! But this was 1867 ... He hesitated a moment;
then,--opening his medicine chest, he measured out and swallowed
thirty grains of quinine.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Bucolics by Virgil: I pledge this heifer; every day she comes
Twice to the milking-pail, and feeds withal
Two young ones at her udder: say you now
What you will stake upon the match with me.
MENALCAS
Naught from the flock I'll venture, for at home
I have a father and a step-dame harsh,
And twice a day both reckon up the flock,
And one withal the kids. But I will stake,
Seeing you are so mad, what you yourself
Will own more priceless far- two beechen cups
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A House of Pomegranates by Oscar Wilde: in spring. He knew where the wood-pigeons built their nests, and
once when a fowler had snared the parent birds, he had brought up
the young ones himself, and had built a little dovecot for them in
the cleft of a pollard elm. They were quite tame, and used to feed
out of his hands every morning. She would like them, and the
rabbits that scurried about in the long fern, and the jays with
their steely feathers and black bills, and the hedgehogs that could
curl themselves up into prickly balls, and the great wise tortoises
that crawled slowly about, shaking their heads and nibbling at the
young leaves. Yes, she must certainly come to the forest and play
with him. He would give her his own little bed, and would watch
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