The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: invitation to prayer. In response to its summons the white members
of the family took their usual places in one end of the large hall,
while the Samoans - men, women, and children - trooped in through
all the open doors, some carrying lanterns if the evening were
dark, all moving quietly and dropping with Samoan decorum in a wide
semicircle on the floor beneath a great lamp that hung from the
ceiling. The service began by my son reading a chapter from the
Samoan Bible, Tusitala following with a prayer in English,
sometimes impromptu, but more often from the notes in this little
book, interpolating or changing with the circumstance of the day.
Then came the singing of one or more hymns in the native tongue,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Hellenica by Xenophon: The new admiral Hierax, taking with him the larger portion of the
fleet, set sail once more for Rhodes. He left behind him twelve
vessels in Aegina under his vice-admiral Gorgopas, who was now
installed as governor of that island. In consequence of this chance
the Athenian troops inside the fortres were more blockaded than the
Aeginetans themselves, so much so that a vote was passed by the
Athenian assembly, in obedience to which a large fleet was manned, and
the garrison, after four months' sojourn in Aegina, were brought back.
But this was no sooner done than they began to be harassed by Gorgopas
and the privateers again. To operate aganst these they fitted out
thirteen vessels, choosing Eunomus as admiral in command. Hierax was
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Beauty and The Beast by Bayard Taylor: force was allayed, and her content increased as she saw and
performed the possible duties of her life. Perhaps her father
might have caught something of her spirit, but for his anxiety in
regard to the suspended correspondence. He wearied himself in
guesses, which all ended in the simple fact that, to escape
embarrassment, the rent must again be saved from the earnings of
the farm.
The harvests that year were bountiful; wheat, barley, and oats
stood thick and heavy in the fields. No one showed more careful
thrift or more cheerful industry than young Joel Bradbury, and the
family felt that much of the fortune of their harvest was owing to
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