| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Aspern Papers by Henry James: on the spot.
"We can't talk there--she will hear us."
I was on the point of replying that in that case we would
sit silent, but I was too conscious that this would not do,
as there was something I desired immensely to ask her.
So I proposed that we should walk a little in the sala, keeping
more at the other end, where we should not disturb the old lady.
Miss Tita assented unconditionally; the doctor was coming again,
she said, and she would be there to meet him at the door.
We strolled through the fine superfluous hall, where on
the marble floor--particularly as at first we said nothing--
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Old Indian Legends by Zitkala-Sa: slipped away unheard by the sleeping Iya babe.
When the morning sun arose, the babe awoke. Seeing himself
deserted, he threw off his baby form in a hot rage.
Wearing his own ugly shape, his huge body toppled to and fro,
from side to side, on a pair of thin legs far too small for their
burden. Though with every move he came dangerously nigh to
falling, he followed in the trail of the fleeing people.
"I shall eat you in the sight of a noon-day sun!" cried Iya in
his vain rage, when he spied them encamped beyond a river.
By some unknown cunning he swam the river and sought his way
toward the teepees.
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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: again, breasting the slope of a wooded hill which thrust
itself out from the steeper flank of the mountain-range. Down
the hill-side a song floated to meet us--that most noble lyric of
old Robert Herrick:
Bid me to live, and I will live
Thy Protestant to be;
Or bid me love, and I will give
A loving heart to thee.
It was a girl's voice, fresh and clear, with a note of
tenderness in it that thrilled me. Keene's pace quickened.
And soon the singer came in sight, stepping lightly down the
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