| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed by Edna Ferber: Konrad Nirlanger turned to his wife, the black look
on his face growing blacker.
"Come, get up Anna," he ordered, in German. "These
heroics become not a woman of your years. And too, you
must not ruin the so costly gown that will be returned
to-morrow."
Frau Nirlanger's white face was lifted from the
shelter of her arms. The stricken look was still upon
it, but there was no cowering in her attitude now.
Slowly she rose to her feet. I had not realized that she
was so tall.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne: He was sitting upon the ground upon a little straw, in the furthest
corner of his dungeon, which was alternately his chair and bed: a
little calendar of small sticks were laid at the head, notch'd all
over with the dismal days and nights he had passed there; - he had
one of these little sticks in his hand, and, with a rusty nail he
was etching another day of misery to add to the heap. As I
darkened the little light he had, he lifted up a hopeless eye
towards the door, then cast it down, - shook his head, and went on
with his work of affliction. I heard his chains upon his legs, as
he turned his body to lay his little stick upon the bundle. - He
gave a deep sigh. - I saw the iron enter into his soul! - I burst
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Walking by Henry David Thoreau: by American mythology.
The wildest dreams of wild men, even, are not the less true,
though they may not recommend themselves to the sense which is
most common among Englishmen and Americans today. It is not every
truth that recommends itself to the common sense. Nature has a
place for the wild Clematis as well as for the cabbage. Some
expressions of truth are reminiscent--others merely SENSIBLE, as
the phrase is,--others prophetic. Some forms of disease, even,
may prophesy forms of health. The geologist has discovered that
the figures of serpents, griffins, flying dragons, and other
fanciful embellishments of heraldry, have their prototypes in the
 Walking |