| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: not the Pneuma indeed, the Infinite Breath, the Divine Ghost, the
great Blue Soul of the Unknown. All, all is blue in the
calm,--save the low land under your feet, which you almost
forget, since it seems only as a tiny green flake afloat in the
liquid eternity of day. Then slowly, caressingly, irresistibly,
the witchery of the Infinite grows upon you: out of Time and
Space you begin to dream with open eyes,--to drift into delicious
oblivion of facts,--to forget the past, the present, the
substantial,--to comprehend nothing but the existence of that
infinite Blue Ghost as something into which you would wish to
melt utterly away forever....
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: the sounds of the beautiful voice and the viol in unison, far off
and faint as the dawn. The dying man smiled.
"Thank you," he said, "for bringing those singing voices and the
music, a banquet, young and lovely women with fair faces and dark
tresses, all the pleasure of life! Bid them wait for me; for I am
about to begin life anew."
"The delirium is at its height," said Don Juan to himself.
"I have found out a way of coming to life again," the speaker
went on. "There, just look in that table drawer, press the spring
hidden by the griffin, and it will fly open."
"I have found it, father."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: front of us any painful duty, strengthen us with the grace of
courage; if any act of mercy, teach us tenderness and patience.
ANOTHER IN TIME OF RAIN
LORD, Thou sendest down rain upon the uncounted millions of the
forest, and givest the trees to drink exceedingly. We are here
upon this isle a few handfuls of men, and how many myriads upon
myriads of stalwart trees! Teach us the lesson of the trees. The
sea around us, which this rain recruits, teems with the race of
fish; teach us, Lord, the meaning of the fishes. Let us see
ourselves for what we are, one out of the countless number of the
clans of thy handiwork. When we would despair, let us remember
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