| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister: patriots away over on the Atlantic edge of the continent, declared
ourselves an independent nation, a Spanish ship, in the name of Saint
Francis, was unloading the centuries of her own civilization at the
Golden Gate. San Diego had come earlier. Then, slowly, as mission after
mission was built along the soft coast wilderness, new ports were
established--at Santa Barbara, and by Point San Luis for San Luis Obispo,
which lay inland a little way up the gorge where it opened among the
hills. Thus the world reached these missions by water; while on land,
through the mountains, a road led to them, and also to many more that
were too distant behind the hills for ships to serve--a rough road, long
and lonely, punctuated with church towers and gardens. For the Fathers
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from An Episode Under the Terror by Honore de Balzac: from her musings, by holding out a little cardboard box wrapped in
blue paper.
"What is the matter, citoyenne?" he asked.
"Nothing, nothing, my friends," she answered, in a gentle voice. She
looked up at the man as she spoke, as if to thank him by a glance; but
she saw the red cap on his head, and a cry broke from her. "Ah! YOU
have betrayed me!"
The man and his young wife replied by an indignant gesture, that
brought the color to the old lady's face; perhaps she felt relief,
perhaps she blushed for her suspicions.
"Forgive me!" she said, with a childlike sweetness in her tones. Then,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: happiness or her own, but entreated her brother to send back the
messenger with the sum required. Imlac, being consulted, was not
very confident of the veracity of the relater, and was still more
doubtful of the Arab's faith, who might, if he were too liberally
trusted, detain at once the money and the captives. He thought it
dangerous to put themselves in the power of the Arab by going into
his district; and could not expect that the rover would so much
expose himself as to come into the lower country, where he might be
seized by the forces of the Bassa.
It is difficult to negotiate where neither will trust. But Imlac,
after some deliberation, directed the messenger to propose that
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