| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: only for my ransom, they began to vie with each other in
obsequiousness and reverence.
"Being again comforted with new assurances of speedy liberty, I was
for some days diverted from impatience by the novelty of the place.
The turrets overlooked the country to a great distance, and
afforded a view of many windings of the stream. In the day I
wandered from one place to another, as the course of the sun varied
the splendour of the prospect, and saw many things which I had
never seen before. The crocodiles and river-horses are common in
this unpeopled region; and I often looked upon them with terror,
though I knew they could not hurt me. For some time I expected to
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Ozma of Oz by L. Frank Baum: to be relieved of her duties to the people of Ev, and the Queen
graciously permitted her to retain her rooms and her cabinet of heads
as long as she lived.
Then the Queen took her eldest son out upon a balcony that overlooked
the crowd of subjects gathered below, and said to them:
"Here is your future ruler, King Evardo Fifteenth. He is fifteen
years of age, has fifteen silver buckles on his jacket and is the
fifteenth Evardo to rule the land of Ev."
The people shouted their approval fifteen times, and even the Wheelers,
some of whom were present, loudly promised to obey the new King.
So the Queen placed a big crown of gold, set with rubies, upon
 Ozma of Oz |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: flour. The housekeeper opened it and showed it to the king, on whom
she cast the rapid, savage look with which old maids appear to squirt
venom upon men.
"It costs six sous the 'septeree,'" she said.
"What does that matter?" said the king. "Spread it on the floor; but
be careful to make an even layer of it--as if it had fallen like
snow."
The old maid did not comprehend. This proposal astonished her as
though the end of the world had come.
"My flour, sire! on the ground! But--"
Maitre Cornelius, who was beginning to understand, though vaguely, the
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