| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: buncoing the pushed-back brows seemed as hopeless as trying to shake
down the Beef Trust with a mittimus and a parlor rifle.
"'Well,' says he, looking at me close, 'speak up. I see the left
pocket of your coat sags a good deal. Out with the goldbrick first.
I'm rather more interested in the bricks than I am in the trick sixty-
day notes and the lost silver mine story.'
"I had a kind of cerebral sensation of foolishness in my ideas of
ratiocination; but I pulled out the little brick and unwrapped my
handkerchief off it.
"'One dollar and eighty cents,' says the farmer hefting it in his
hand. 'Is it a trade?'
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: beware how they profanely touch--that of theology. Strange, and
miserably strange, that while they are modest enough to doubt their
powers, and pause at the threshold of sciences where every step is
demonstrable and sure, they will plunge headlong, and without one
thought of incompetency, into that science in which the greatest men
have trembled, and the wisest erred. Strange, that they will
complacently and pridefully bind up whatever vice or folly there is
in them, whatever arrogance, petulance, or blind
incomprehensiveness, into one bitter bundle of consecrated myrrh.
Strange, in creatures born to be Love visible, that where they can
know least, they will condemn, first, and think to recommend
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: lamp near him tottered on its pedestal and fell with a crash. In
the confusion he vanished, as noiselessly as a shade.
John turned to Hermas, and his tone softened as he said:
"My son, you have sinned deeper than you know. The word with
which you parted so lightly is the keyword of all life.
Without it the world has no meaning, existence no peace, death
no refuge. It is the word that purifies love, and comforts
grief, and keeps hope alive forever. It is the most precious
word that ever ear has heard, or mind has known, or heart has
conceived. It is the name of Him who has given us life and
breath and all things richly to enjoy; the name of Him who,
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