The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Persuasion by Jane Austen: of the gentleman who is just gone away?"
"Yes, Sir, a Mr Elliot, a gentleman of large fortune, came in last night
from Sidmouth. Dare say you heard the carriage, sir, while you were
at dinner; and going on now for Crewkherne, in his way to Bath
and London."
"Elliot!" Many had looked on each other, and many had repeated the name,
before all this had been got through, even by the smart rapidity
of a waiter.
"Bless me!" cried Mary; "it must be our cousin; it must be our Mr Elliot,
it must, indeed! Charles, Anne, must not it? In mourning, you see,
just as our Mr Elliot must be. How very extraordinary!
 Persuasion |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: the chief town in the island, destined to become so famous in the
annals of Protestantism, at that time only numbered some two or three
hundred hearths; and the prosperous town of Ostend was an obscure
haven, a straggling village where pirates dwelt in security among the
fishermen and the few poor merchants who lived in the place.
But though the town of Ostend consisted altogether of some score of
houses and three hundred cottages, huts or hovels built of the
driftwood of wrecked vessels, it nevertheless rejoiced in the
possession of a governor, a garrison, a forked gibbet, a convent, and
a burgomaster, in short, in all the institutions of an advanced
civilization.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Statesman by Plato: stars and the sun must have occurred in both.
STRANGER: I see that you enter into my meaning;--no, that blessed and
spontaneous life does not belong to the present cycle of the world, but to
the previous one, in which God superintended the whole revolution of the
universe; and the several parts the universe were distributed under the
rule of certain inferior deities, as is the way in some places still.
There were demigods, who were the shepherds of the various species and
herds of animals, and each one was in all respects sufficient for those of
whom he was the shepherd; neither was there any violence, or devouring of
one another, or war or quarrel among them; and I might tell of ten thousand
other blessings, which belonged to that dispensation. The reason why the
 Statesman |