| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Flower Fables by Louisa May Alcott: and bow to learn from them that giving joy and peace to others
brings it fourfold to us, bearing a double happiness in the blessings
to those we help. Through the dreary months, when they might have
dwelt among fair Southern flowers, beneath a smiling sky, they toiled
in the dark and silent earth, filling the hearts of the gentle Flower
Spirits with grateful love, seeking no reward but the knowledge of
their own good deeds, and the joy they always bring. This they have
done unmurmuringly and alone; and now, far and wide, flower blessings
fall upon them, and the summer winds bear the glad tidings unto those
who droop in sorrow, and new joy and strength it brings, as they look
longingly for the friends whose gentle care hath brought such
 Flower Fables |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Poems by Bronte Sisters: That when the clip of wrath is drained,
The metal purified,
They'll cling to what they once disdained,
And live by Him that died.
PAST DAYS.
'Tis strange to think there WAS a time
When mirth was not an empty name,
When laughter really cheered the heart,
And frequent smiles unbidden came,
And tears of grief would only flow
In sympathy for others' woe;
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: other? The guilty Clifford! Once a byword! Now, an indistinctly
remembered ignominy!
Nevertheless, in spite of this perception that the Judge would
draw all human aid to his own behalf, Hepzibah was so
unaccustomed to act for herself, that the least word of counsel
would have swayed her to any mode of action. Little Phoebe
Pyncheon would at once have lighted up the whole scene, if not
by any available suggestion, yet simply by the warm vivacity of
her character. The idea of the artist occurred to Hepzibah.
Young and unknown, mere vagrant adventurer as he was, she had
been conscious of a force in Holgrave which might well adapt him
 House of Seven Gables |