The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: Then, in reply to their friendly urging, he had confessed that
he had not been well--had indeed gone off hurriedly for a few
days' change of air--and that left him without defence against
the immediate proposal that he should take his change of air on
the Ibis. They were just off to Corsica and Sardinia, and from
there to Sicily: he could rejoin the railway at Naples, and be
back at Venice in ten days.
Ten days of respite--the temptation was irresistible. And he
really liked the kind uncomplicated Hickses. A wholesome
honesty and simplicity breathed through all their opulence, as
if the rich trappings of their present life still exhaled the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tales of the Klondyke by Jack London: radiance to earth, and unreal shadows. To the sky-line of the
four quarters--spruce-shrouded islands, dark waters, and ice-
scarred rocky ridges--stretched the immaculate wilderness. No
sign of human existence broke the solitude; no sound the
stillness. The land seemed bound under the unreality of the
unknown, wrapped in the brooding mystery of great spaces.
Perhaps it was this which made Mrs. Sayther nervous; for she
changed her position constantly, now to look up the river, now
down, or to scan the gloomy shores for the half-hidden mouths of
back channels. After an hour or so the boatmen were sent ashore
to pitch camp for the night, but Pierre remained with his mistress
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: having taken a journey to the other?
Nay, the very reader, of our parish, a good sober, discreet
person, has sent two or three times for me to come and be buried
decently, or send him sufficient reasons to the contrary, if I
have been interr'd in any other parish, to produce my
certificate, as the act requires. My poor wife is almost run
distracted with being called Widow Partridge, when she knows its
false; and once a term she is cited into the court, to take out
letters of administration. But the greatest grievance is, a
paultry quack, that takes up my calling just under my nose, and
in his printed directions with N.B. says, He lives in the house
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