| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Horse's Tale by Mark Twain: bugle and blew the 'assembly'; and then, 'boots and saddles'; then
the 'trot'; 'gallop'; 'charge!' Then she blew the 'retreat,' and
said, 'That's for you, you rebels; the Rangers don't ever retreat!'
"The music frightened them away, but they were hungry, and kept
coming back. And of course they got bolder and bolder, which is
their way. It went on for an hour, then the tired child went to
sleep, and it was pitiful to hear her moan and nestle, and I
couldn't do anything for her. All the time I was laying for the
wolves. They are in my line; I have had experience. At last the
boldest one ventured within my lines, and I landed him among his
friends with some of his skull still on him, and they did the rest.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Lesson of the Master by Henry James: inequalities, superficialities. For one who looks at it from the
artistic point of view it contains a bottomless ambiguity."
She became at this, on the spot, all intensity. "Ah do describe
that more - it's so interesting. There are no such suggestive
questions. I'm so fond of them. He thinks he's a failure -
fancy!" she beautifully wailed.
"That depends on what his ideal may have been. With his gifts it
ought to have been high. But till one knows what he really
proposed to himself - ? Do YOU know by chance?" the young man
broke off.
"Oh he doesn't talk to me about himself. I can't make him. It's
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson: 'Dear Mrs. Luxmore,' said he, 'this is a most unusual
proposal. You know nothing of me, beyond the fact that I
displayed both impudence and timidity. I may be the worst
kind of scoundrel; I may sell your furniture - '
'You may blow up the house with gunpowder, for what I care!'
cried Mrs. Luxmore. 'It is in vain to reason. Such is the
force of my character that, when I have one idea clearly in
my head, I do not care two straws for any side consideration.
It amuses me to do it, and let that suffice. On your side,
you may do what you please - let apartments, or keep a
private hotel; on mine, I promise you a full month's warning
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