| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: the sweet look of goodness which sat upon my uncle Toby's, assimilated
every thing around it so sovereignly to itself, and Nature had moreover
wrote Gentleman with so fair a hand in every line of his countenance, that
even his tarnish'd gold-laced hat and huge cockade of flimsy taffeta became
him; and though not worth a button in themselves, yet the moment my uncle
Toby put them on, they became serious objects, and altogether seem'd to
have been picked up by the hand of Science to set him off to advantage.
Nothing in this world could have co-operated more powerfully towards this,
than my uncle Toby's blue and gold--had not Quantity in some measure been
necessary to Grace: in a period of fifteen or sixteen years since they had
been made, by a total inactivity in my uncle Toby's life, for he seldom
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry: and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they
are wisest. They are the magi.
End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of THE GIFT OF THE MAGI.
The Gift of the Magi |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: The Upper Dam at Rangeley is the place, of all others in the world,
where the lunacy of angling may be seen in its incurable stage.
There is a cosy little inn, called a camp, at the foot of a big
lake. In front of the inn is a huge dam of gray stone, over which
the river plunges into a great oval pool, where the trout assemble
in the early fall to perpetuate their race. From the tenth of
September to the thirtieth, there is not an hour of the day or night
when there are no boats floating on that pool, and no anglers
trailing the fly across its waters. Before the late fishermen are
ready to come in at midnight, the early fishermen may be seen
creeping down to the shore with lanterns in order to begin before
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