| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: some drinking, some drunk, some nodding, others asleep.
St. Louis is a great and prosperous and advancing city;
but the river-edge of it seems dead past resurrection.
Mississippi steamboating was born about 1812; at the end of thirty years,
it had grown to mighty proportions; and in less than thirty more,
it was dead! A strangely short life for so majestic a creature.
Of course it is not absolutely dead, neither is a crippled octogenarian
who could once jump twenty-two feet on level ground; but as contrasted
with what it was in its prime vigor, Mississippi steamboating may
be called dead.
It killed the old-fashioned keel-boating, by reducing
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner: of the ice-plant stood upright, and the sun shone through it. He could see
every little crystal cell like a drop of ice in the transparent green, and
it thrilled him.
There are only rare times when a man's soul can see Nature.
So long as any passion holds its revel there, the eyes are holden that they
should not see her.
Go out if you will and walk alone on the hillside in the evening, but if
your favourite child lies ill at home, or your lover comes tomorrow, or at
your heart there lies a scheme for the holding of wealth, then you will
return as you went out; you will have seen nothing. For Nature, ever, like
the Old Hebrew God, cries out, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott: very germain to the matter, and what would save an application to
the apothecary. He then paused, and looking at Lady Bothwell
very significantly, at length added, "I suppose I must not ask
your ladyship anything about this Italian warlock's proceedings?"
"Indeed, doctor," answered Lady Bothwell, "I consider what passed
as confidential; and though the man may be a rogue, yet, as we
were fools enough to consult him, we should, I think, be honest
enough to keep his counsel."
"MAY be a knave! Come," said the doctor, "I am glad to hear your
ladyship allows such a possibility in anything that comes from
Italy."
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