| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: your land without paying for it, as Rigou got his; whereas if you go
and thrust this estate into the jaws of the rich folk of the valley,
the rich folk will dribble it back to you impoverished and at twice
the price they paid for it. You are working for their interests, I
tell you; so does everybody who works for Rigou,--look at
Courtecuisse."
The policy contained in this allocution was too deep for the drunken
heads of those present, who were all, except Courtecuisse, laying by
their money to buy a slice of the Aigues cake. So they let Jean-Louis
harangue, and continued, as in the Chamber of Deputies, their private
confabs with one another.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne: not the most delicate in nature, 'tis the fault of his own
imagination, - against which this is not my first complaint.
Now, when we were got to bed, whether it was the novelty of the
situation, or what it was, I know not; but so it was, I could not
shut my eyes; I tried this side, and that, and turn'd and turn'd
again, till a full hour after midnight; when Nature and patience
both wearing out, - O, my God! said I.
- You have broke the treaty, Monsieur, said the lady, who had no
more slept than myself. - I begg'd a thousand pardons - but
insisted it was no more than an ejaculation. She maintained 'twas
an entire infraction of the treaty - I maintained it was provided
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: striking the lyre in high-sounding measures for the handiwork
of God. What experience supplies is of a mingled tissue, and
the choosing mind has much to reject before it can get
together the materials of a theory. Dew and thunder,
destroying Atilla and the Spring lambkins, belong to an order
of contrasts which no repetition can assimilate. There is an
uncouth, outlandish strain throughout the web of the world, as
from a vexatious planet in the house of life. Things are not
congruous and wear strange disguises: the consummate flower is
fostered out of dung, and after nourishing itself awhile with
heaven's delicate distillations, decays again into
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