| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Essays of Francis Bacon by Francis Bacon: where a man's eye, upon the countenance of him
with whom he speaketh, may give him a direction
how far to go; and generally, where a man will
reserve to himself liberty, either to disavow or to
expound. In choice of instruments, it is better to
choose men of a plainer sort, that are like to do
that, that is committed to them, and to report back
again faithfully the success, than those that are
cunning, to contrive, out of other men's business,
somewhat to grace themselves, and will help the
matter in report for satisfaction's sake. Use also
Essays of Francis Bacon |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: speaking swiftly and addressing a mind still recently
incensed, were not harnessing for a more perilous adventure;
as if yourself required less tact and eloquence; as if an
angry friend or a suspicious lover were not more easy to
offend than a meeting of indifferent politicians! Nay, and
the orator treads in a beaten round; the matters he discusses
have been discussed a thousand times before; language is
ready-shaped to his purpose; he speaks out of a cut and dry
vocabulary. But you - may it not be that your defence reposes
on some subtlety of feeling, not so much as touched upon in
Shakespeare, to express which, like a pioneer, you must
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac: Taillefer, a schoolgirl, to whom she filled the place of mother.
These two ladies paid eighteen hundred francs a year.
The two sets of rooms on the second floor were respectively
occupied by an old man named Poiret and a man of forty or
thereabouts, the wearer of a black wig and dyed whiskers, who
gave out that he was a retired merchant, and was addressed as M.
Vautrin. Two of the four rooms on the third floor were also let--
one to an elderly spinster, a Mlle. Michonneau, and the other to
a retired manufacturer of vermicelli, Italian paste and starch,
who allowed the others to address him as "Father Goriot." The
remaining rooms were allotted to various birds of passage, to
Father Goriot |
