The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Octopus by Frank Norris: wall just inside the street entrance of a huge office building,
and smitten with an idea, stood for an instant motionless, upon
the sidewalk, his eyes wide, his fists shut tight.
The building contained the General Office of the Pacific and
Southwestern Railroad. Large though it was, it nevertheless, was
not pretentious, and during his visits to the city, Presley must
have passed it, unheeding, many times.
But for all that it was the stronghold of the enemy--the centre
of all that vast ramifying system of arteries that drained the
life-blood of the State; the nucleus of the web in which so many
lives, so many fortunes, so many destinies had been enmeshed.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac: for CERTAIN, he thought; he preferred the chances of fair fight, and
made up his mind to wait till morning; the morning did not leave him
long to wait.
He could now examine the panther at ease; its muzzle was smeared with
blood.
"She's had a good dinner," he thought, without troubling himself as to
whether her feast might have been on human flesh. "She won't be hungry
when she gets up."
It was a female. The fur on her belly and flanks was glistening white;
many small marks like velvet formed beautiful bracelets round her
feet; her sinuous tail was also white, ending with black rings; the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: upright in sunshine, resting a smooth-shaven cheek in the palm of
his hand, impenetrable, secret, full of wiles, fine-drawn, keen -
meditating aggressions.
The West Wind keeps faith with his brother, the King of the
Easterly weather. "What we have divided we have divided," he seems
to say in his gruff voice, this ruler without guile, who hurls as
if in sport enormous masses of cloud across the sky, and flings the
great waves of the Atlantic clear across from the shores of the New
World upon the hoary headlands of Old Europe, which harbours more
kings and rulers upon its seamed and furrowed body than all the
oceans of the world together. "What we have divided we have
 The Mirror of the Sea |