| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister: after the rider was behind the hill, and the Pacific lay like a floor of
sapphire, whereon to walk beyond the setting sun into the East. One white
sail shone there. Instead of an hour, it had been from dawn till
afternoon in sight between the short headlands; and the Padre had hoped
that it might be the ship his homesick heart awaited. But it had slowly
passed. From an arch in his garden cloisters he was now watching the last
of it. Presently it was gone, and the great ocean lay empty. The Padre
put his glasses in his lap. For a short while he read in his breviary,
but soon forgot it again. He looked at the flowers and sunny ridges, then
at the huge blue triangle of sea which the opening of the hills let into
sight. "Paradise," he murmured, "need not hold more beauty and peace. But
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Kidnapped Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum: It is called the Laughing Valley because everything there is happy
and gay. The brook chuckles to itself as it leaps rollicking between
its green banks; the wind whistles merrily in the trees; the sunbeams
dance lightly over the soft grass, and the violets and wild flowers
look smilingly up from their green nests. To laugh one needs to be
happy; to be happy one needs to be content. And throughout the
Laughing Valley of Santa Claus contentment reigns supreme.
On one side is the mighty Forest of Burzee. At the other side stands
the huge mountain that contains the Caves of the Daemons. And between
them the Valley lies smiling and peaceful.
One would thing that our good old Santa Claus, who devotes his days to
A Kidnapped Santa Claus |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: considered fugitive slaves when their masters had run away and
left them? How should they be disposed of? It was a knotty
problem, and upon its solution might depend the loyalty or
secession of the border slave States of Maryland, West Virginia,
Kentucky and Missouri, which, up to that time, had not decided
whether to remain in the Union or to cast their fortunes with the
South.
In dealing with this perplexing subject. Mr. Lincoln kept in mind
one of his favorite stories: the one on the Methodist Presiding
Elder who was riding about his circuit during the spring
freshets. A young and anxious companion asked how they should
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