| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Flame and Shadow by Sara Teasdale: What has man done that only he
Is slave to death -- so brutally
Beaten back into the earth
Impatient for him since his birth?
Oh let me shut my eyes, close out
The sight of stars and earth and be
Sheltered a minute by this tree.
Hemlock, through your fragrant boughs
There moves no anger and no doubt,
No envy of immortal things.
The night-wind murmurs of the sea
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Burning Daylight by Jack London: the eighteenth. Not only was he gambling as he had never gambled
before, but he was gambling at the biggest table in the world and
for stakes so large that even the case-hardened habitues of that
table were compelled to sit up. In spite of the unlimited
selling, his persistent buying compelled Ward Valley steadily to
rise, and as Thursday approached, the situation became acute.
Something had to smash. How much Ward Valley was this Klondike
gambler going to buy? How much could he buy? What was the Ward
Valley crowd doing all this time? Daylight appreciated the
interviews with them that appeared--interviews delightfully
placid
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Aspern Papers by Henry James: I don't know where my gondolier took me; we floated aimlessly
about in the lagoon, with slow, rare strokes. At last I became
conscious that we were near the Lido, far up, on the right hand,
as you turn your back to Venice, and I made him put me ashore.
I wanted to walk, to move, to shed some of my bewilderment.
I crossed the narrow strip and got to the sea beach--I took my
way toward Malamocco. But presently I flung myself down again
on the warm sand, in the breeze, on the coarse dry grass.
It took it out of me to think I had been so much at fault,
that I had unwittingly but nonetheless deplorably trifled.
But I had not given her cause--distinctly I had not.
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