| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey: snake. In a few miles of travel he passed several cows and calves
that had escaped the drive. Then he stood on the last high bench
of the slope with the floor of the valley beneath. The opening of
the canyon showed in a break of the sage, and the cattle trail
paralleled it as far as he could see. That trail led to an
undiscovered point where Oldring drove cattle into the pass, and
many a rider who had followed it had never returned. Venters
satisfied himself that the rustlers had not deviated from their
usual course, and then he turned at right angles off the cattle
trail and made for the head of the pass.
The sun lost its heat and wore down to the western horizon, where
 Riders of the Purple Sage |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac: for him to bear.
"This unfortunate family were named Jeanrenaud," he went on. "That
name is enough to account for my conduct. I could never think without
keen pain of the secret disgrace that weighed on my family. That
fortune enabled my grandfather to marry a demoiselle de Navarreins-
Lansac, heiress to the younger branch of that house, who were at that
time much richer than the elder branch of the Navarreins. My father
thus became one of the largest landowners in the kingdom. He was able
to marry my mother, a Grandlieu of the younger branch. Though ill-
gotten, this property has been singularly profitable.
"For my part, being determined to remedy the mischief, I wrote to
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: groaned, children cried, water dripped, the lights
went out, the walls of the place creaked, and every-
thing was being shaken so that in one's little box
one dared not lift one's head. He had lost touch
with his only companion (a young man from the
same valley, he said), and all the time a great noise
of wind went on outside and heavy blows fell--
boom! boom! An awful sickness overcame him,
even to the point of making him neglect his pray-
ers. Besides, one could not tell whether it was
morning or evening. It seemed always to be night
 Amy Foster |