| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: despair upon my eyesight. Long after he made me a formal
retractation of the sermon and a formal apology for the pain he had
inflicted; adding drolly, but truly, 'You see, at that time I was
so much younger than you!' And yet even in those days there was
much to learn from him; and above all his fine spirit of piety,
bravely and trustfully accepting life, and his singular delight in
the heroic.
His piety was, indeed, a thing of chief importance. His views (as
they are called) upon religious matters varied much; and he could
never be induced to think them more or less than views. 'All dogma
is to me mere form,' he wrote; 'dogmas are mere blind struggles to
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lin McLean by Owen Wister: "It's on both, yu' know. We had it put on the day she settled to accept
the superintendent's proposition." Here Lin fired his small exchanged
weapon at a cotton-wood, striking low. "She can beat that with mine!" he
exclaimed, proud and tender. "She took four days deciding at Edgeford,
and I learned her to hit the ace of clubs." He showed me the cards they
had practiced upon during those four days of indecision; he had them in a
book as if they were pressed flowers. "They won't get crumpled that way,"
said he; and he further showed me a tintype. "She's got the other at
Separ," he finished.
I shook his hand with all my might. Yes, he was worthy of her! Yes, he
deserved this smooth course his love was running! And I shook his hand
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Before Adam by Jack London: They did not deter me. I was mad. They struck at me,
but I ducked and dodged and ran on. Then there was a
python that ordinarily would have sent me screeching to
a tree-top. He did run me into a tree; but the Swift
One was going out of sight, and I sprang back to the
ground and went on. It was a close shave. Then there
was my old enemy, the hyena. From my conduct he was
sure something was going to happen, and he followed me
for an hour. Once we exasperated a band of wild pigs,
and they took after us. The Swift One dared a wide
leap between trees that was too much for me. I had to
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