| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy De Maupassant: pointed mountain summits, which glistened in the sun; the
Mischabel with its twin peaks, the huge group of the Weisshorn,
the heavy Brunegghorn, the lofty and formidable pyramid of Mont
Cervin, slayer of men, and the Dent Blanche, that terrible
coquette.
Then beneath them, as at the bottom of a terrible abyss, they saw
Loeche, its houses looking like grains of sand which had been
thrown into that enormous crevice which finishes and closes the
Gemmi, and which opens, down below, on to the Rhone.
The mule stopped at the edge of the path, which turns and twists
continually, zigzagging fantastically and strangely along the
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: easy to work on your feelings, so I will not waste my eloquence on the
attempt to put my position before you--I am a penniless clerk, with no
one to look to but you, and no heart in the world but yours can form a
clear idea of my probable future. Let us leave hearts out of the
question. Business is business, and business is not carried on with
sentimentality like romances. Now to the facts. My principal's
practice is worth in his hands about twenty thousand francs per annum;
in my hands, I think it would bring in forty thousand. He is willing
to sell it for a hundred and fifty thousand francs. And HERE,' I said,
striking my forehead, 'I feel that if you would lend me the purchase-
money, I could clear it off in ten years' time.'
Gobseck |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Crowd by Gustave le Bon: repetition, and contagion. Their action is somewhat slow, but
its effects, once produced, are very lasting.
Affirmation pure and simple, kept free of all reasoning and all
proof, is one of the surest means of making an idea enter the
mind of crowds. The conciser an affirmation is, the more
destitute of every appearance of proof and demonstration, the
more weight it carries. The religious books and the legal codes
of all ages have always resorted to simple affirmation.
Statesmen called upon to defend a political cause, and commercial
men pushing the sale of their products by means of advertising
are acquainted with the value of affirmation.
|
