| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas: "Gentlemen," exclaimed D'Artagnan, whom reflection never
abandoned, "gentlemen, think of what you are about. Patience,
Athos! You are running your heads into a very silly affair; you
will be riddled. My lackey and I will have three shots at you,
and you will get as many from the cellar. You will then have out
swords, with which, I can assure you, my friend and I can play
tolerably well. Let me conduct your business and my own. You
shall soon have something to drink; I give you my word."
"If there is any left," grumbled the jeering voice of Athos.
The host felt a cold sweat creep down his back.
"How! 'If there is any left!" murmured he.
 The Three Musketeers |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne: palæontology. But that a man, a living man, and therefore whole
generations doubtless besides, should be buried there in the bowels
of the earth, is impossible.
However, we had left behind us the luminous forest, dumb with
astonishment, overwhelmed and struck down with a terror which
amounted to stupefaction. We kept running on for fear the horrible
monster might be on our track. It was a flight, a fall, like that
fearful pulling and dragging which is peculiar to nightmare.
Instinctively we got back to the Liedenbrock sea, and I cannot say
into what vagaries my mind would not have carried me but for a
circumstance which brought me back to practical matters.
 Journey to the Center of the Earth |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: caresses of the sea ...
V.
Thirty years ago, Last Island lay steeped in the enormous light
of even such magical days. July was dying;--for weeks no fleck
of cloud had broken the heaven's blue dream of eternity; winds
held their breath; slow waveless caressed the bland brown beach
with a sound as of kisses and whispers. To one who found himself
alone, beyond the limits of the village and beyond the hearing of
its voices,--the vast silence, the vast light, seemed full of
weirdness. And these hushes, these transparencies, do not always
inspire a causeless apprehension: they are omens
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