| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde: quite enough for him.
LADY STUTFIELD. But men are so terribly, terribly exacting, are
they not?
MRS. ALLONBY. That makes no matter. One should never surrender.
LADY STUTFIELD. Not even to the Ideal Man?
MRS. ALLONBY. Certainly not to him. Unless, of course, one wants
to grow tired of him.
LADY STUTFIELD. Oh! . . . yes. I see that. It is very, very
helpful. Do you think, Mrs. Allonby, I shall ever meet the Ideal
Man? Or are there more than one?
MRS. ALLONBY. There are just four in London, Lady Stutfield.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Forged Coupon by Leo Tolstoy: cell for a long time, sat down on his bed. He felt
he could not struggle any more; the black demons
had overpowered him, and he had to submit. For
some time he had been looking at the funnel of the
oven. If he could fix on the knob of its lid a loop
made of thin shreds of narrow linen straps it
would hold. . . . But he would have to man-
age it very cleverly. He set to work, and spent
two days in making straps out of the linen bag on
which he slept. When the guard came into the
cell he covered the bed with his overcoat. He
The Forged Coupon |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: The ministers, compelled to obey the princes or the Chambers who
impose upon them the distribution of the public moneys, and forced to
retain the workers in office, proceeded to diminish salaries and
increase the number of those workers, thinking that if more persons
were employed by government the stronger the government would be. And
yet the contrary law is an axiom written on the universe; there is no
vigor except where there are few active principles. Events proved in
July, 1830, the error of the materialism of the Restoration. To plant
a government in the hearts of a nation it is necessary to bind
INTERESTS to it, not MEN. The government-clerks being led to detest
the administrations which lessened both their salaries and their
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