The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Four Arthurian Romances by Chretien DeTroyes: then the joust began again, and the engagement became general.
Every knight whom Cliges meets he forces to earth. He did not
quit the lists that day even for a single hour, while all the
others struck at him as at a tower--individually, of course,
and not in groups of two or three, for such was not the custom
then. Upon his shield, as upon an anvil, the others strike and
pound, splitting and hewing it to bits. But every one who
strikes him there, he pays back by casting him from his stirrups
and saddle; and no one, unless he wished to lie, could fail to
say when the jousting ceased that the knight with the red shield
had won all the glory on that day. And all the best and most
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Miracle Mongers and Their Methods by Harry Houdini: again to the furnace. On other occasions
the fireman handled blazing wood and
burning substances, and walked during
five minutes upon an iron grating placed
over flaming fagots.
In order to show how the head, eyes, and
lungs are protected, the fireman put on
the asbestos and wire-gauze cap, and the
cuirass, and held the shield before his
breast. A fire of shavings was then lighted,
and kept burning in a large raised chafing-
 Miracle Mongers and Their Methods |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Three Taverns by Edwin Arlington Robinson: Of a child who knows himself and is alone with what he knows;
There were pensioners of dreams and there were debtors of illusions,
All to fail before the triumph of a weed that only grows.
There were thirsting heirs of golden sieves that held not wine or water,
And had no names in traffic or more value there than toys:
There were blighted sons of wonder in the Valley of the Shadow,
Where they suffered and still wondered why their wonder made no noise.
There were slaves who dragged the shackles of a precedent unbroken,
Demonstrating the fulfilment of unalterable schemes,
Which had been, before the cradle, Time's inexorable tenants
Of what were now the dusty ruins of their father's dreams.
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