The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: "'Now,' says I, 'get your mind off the disease. You ain't sick. You
haven't got a heart or a clavicle or a funny bone or brains or
anything. You haven't got any pain. Declare error. Now you feel the
pain that you didn't have leaving, don't you?'
"'I do feel some little better, doc,' says the Mayor, 'darned if I
don't. Now state a few lies about my not having this swelling in my
left side, and I think I could be propped up and have some sausage and
buckwheat cakes.'
"I made a few passes with my hands.
"'Now,' says I, 'the inflammation's gone. The right lobe of the
perihelion has subsided. You're getting sleepy. You can't hold your
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: expectation of having both a morning and an evening tide's
work on the rock.
The boat which the writer steered happened to be the last
which approached the rock at this tide; and, in standing up in
the stern, while at some distance, to see how the leading boat
entered the creek, he was astonished to observe something in
the form of a human figure, in a reclining posture, upon one
of the ledges of the rock. He immediately steered the boat
through a narrow entrance to the eastern harbour, with a
thousand unpleasant sensations in his mind. He thought a
vessel or boat must have been wrecked upon the rock during the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells: mine. Only the fact that a hummock of heathery sand inter-
cepted the lower part of the Heat-Ray saved them. Had the
elevation of the parabolic mirror been a few yards higher,
none could have lived to tell the tale. They saw the flashes
and the men falling and an invisible hand, as it were, lit the
bushes as it hurried towards them through the twilight. Then,
with a whistling note that rose above the droning of the pit,
the beam swung close over their heads, lighting the tops of
the beech trees that line the road, and splitting the bricks,
smashing the windows, firing the window frames, and bring-
ing down in crumbling ruin a portion of the gable of the
 War of the Worlds |