| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas: horses of the Musketeers, their martial carriage, with the
regimental step of these noble companions of the soldier, would
have betrayed the most strict incognito. The lackeys followed,
armed to the teeth.
All went well till they arrived at Chantilly, which they reached
about eight o'clock in the morning. They needed breakfast, and
alighted at the door of an AUBERGE, recommended by a sign
representing St. Martin giving half his cloak to a poor man.
They ordered the lackeys not to unsaddle the gorses, and to hold
themselves in readiness to set off again immediately.
They entered the common hall, and placed themselves at table. A
 The Three Musketeers |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: midwinter, some warm and springly swamp where the grass and the
skunk-cabbage still put forth with perennial verdure, and some
hardier bird occasionally awaited the return of spring.
Sometimes, notwithstanding the snow, when I returned from my
walk at evening I crossed the deep tracks of a woodchopper leading
from my door, and found his pile of whittlings on the hearth, and my
house filled with the odor of his pipe. Or on a Sunday afternoon,
if I chanced to be at home, I heard the cronching of the snow made
by the step of a long-headed farmer, who from far through the woods
sought my house, to have a social "crack"; one of the few of his
vocation who are "men on their farms"; who donned a frock instead of
 Walden |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lucile by Owen Meredith: For the sake of Matilda I cannot importune
Your attention too early. If all your wife's fortune
Is yet in the hands of that specious old sinner,
Who would dice with the devil, and yet rise up winner,
I say, lose no time! get it out of the grab
Of her trustee and uncle, Sir Ridley McNab.
I trust those deposits, at least, are drawn out,
And safe at this moment from danger or doubt.
A wink is as good as a nod to the wise.
Verbum sap. I admit nothing yet justifies
My mistrust; but I have in my own mind a notion
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