| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: to the barest necessaries, and these my salary was sufficient to
provide. You will therefore find the income of the last two years in
the hands of your steward. This sum is mine; but a Duc de Soria cannot
marry without a large expenditure of money, therefore we will divide
it. You will not refuse this wedding-present from your brigand
brother. Besides, I mean to have it so.
The barony of Macumer, not being Spanish territory, remains to me.
Thus I have still a country and a name, should I wish to take up a
position in the world again.
Thank Heaven, this finishes our business, and the house of Soria is
saved!
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: fulness of all things; grown old, and when, if ever, it might be
allowed me to have had experience of every state of middle life,
and to know which was most adapted to make a man completely happy;
I say, after all this, any one would have thought that the native
propensity to rambling which I gave an account of in my first
setting out in the world to have been so predominant in my
thoughts, should be worn out, and I might, at sixty one years of
age, have been a little inclined to stay at home, and have done
venturing life and fortune any more.
Nay, farther, the common motive of foreign adventures was taken
away in me, for I had no fortune to make; I had nothing to seek:
Robinson Crusoe |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: for my own danger. Father, I am only woman. Mother, I am only
the templement of thy youthful years, but will suffer courageously
whatever punishment you think proper to inflict upon me, if you will
but allow me to comply with my most sacred promises--if you will but
give me my personal right and my personal liberty. Oh, father! if
your generosity will but give me these, I ask nothing more.
When Elfonzo offered me his heart, I gave him my hand, never to
forsake him, and now may the mighty God banish me before I leave him
in adversity. What a heart must I have to rejoice in prosperity
with him whose offers I have accepted, and then, when poverty comes,
haggard as it may be, for me to trifle with the oracles of Heaven,
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