| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Start in Life by Honore de Balzac: have answered for his temperance amid a luxury of food and in presence
of the usual guests of a cafe whose inquisitive observation would have
piqued him.
"I'm afraid Poiret came while we were out," said Clapart to his wife.
"Why, no, my friend; the portress would have told us so when we came
in," replied Madame Clapart.
"She may have forgotten it."
"What makes you think so?"
"It wouldn't be the first time she has forgotten things for us,--for
God knows how people without means are treated."
"Well," said the poor woman, to change the conversation and escape
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death by Patrick Henry: we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have
implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and
Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced
additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded;
and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne!
In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and
reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free--
if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which
we have been so long contending--if we mean not basely to abandon the noble
struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged
ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Beauty and The Beast by Bayard Taylor: shoulders together, as if shrinking from the coming blow.
It was full three minutes before the Prince again spoke. He still
held the whip in his hand, his eyes fixed and the muscles of his
face rigid. All at once the spell seemed to dissolve: his hand
fell, and he said in his ordinary voice--
"You sing remarkably well. Go, now: you shall have ten rubles and
an embroidered caftan for your singing."
But any one would have made a great mistake who dared to awaken
Prince Alexis a second time in the same manner.
V.
Prince Boris, in St. Petersburg, adopted the usual habits of his
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