The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Mucker by Edgar Rice Burroughs: body, his arms, and sticking out his elbows as a further
protection to the invaluable thing.
At the first cry of the woman the dog rose, growling, and
bounded into the room. The tramp leaning against the wall
saw the brute coming--a mongrel hound-dog, bristling and
savage.
The shotgun stood almost within the man's reach--a step
and it was in his hands. As though sensing the fellow's
intentions the dog wheeled from the tramp upon the floor,
toward whom he had leaped, and sprang for the other ragged
scoundrel.
 The Mucker |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: a sort of repugnance to making proselytes; he opened his mind to few
persons, and never showed his external powers of second-sight to any
who were not eminent in faith, wisdom, and love. He could recognize at
a glance the state of the soul of every person who approached him, and
those whom he desired to reach with his inward language he converted
into Seers. After the year 1745, his disciples never saw him do a
single thing from any human motive. One man alone, a Swedish priest,
named Mathesius, set afloat a story that he went mad in London in
1744. But a eulogium on Swedenborg prepared with minute care as to all
the known events of his life, was pronounced after his death in 1772
on behalf of the Royal Academy of Sciences in the Hall of the Nobles
 Seraphita |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson: Here is Mount Clear, Mount Rusty-Nail,
Mount Eagle and Mount High;--
The mice that in these mountains dwell,
No happier are than I!
Oh, what a joy to clamber there,
Oh, what a place for play,
With the sweet, the dim, the dusty air,
The happy hills of hay!
XL
Farewell to the Farm
The coach is at the door at last;
 A Child's Garden of Verses |