| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: gloomy was it, that the gaiety of eldest sons forsook them on the
stairs before they reached my neighbor's door. He and his house were
much alike; even so does the oyster resemble his native rock.
"I was the one creature with whom he had any communication, socially
speaking; he would come in to ask for a light, to borrow a book or a
newspaper, and of an evening he would allow me to go into his cell,
and when he was in the humor we would chat together. These marks of
confidence were the results of four years of neighborhood and my own
sober conduct. From sheer lack of pence, I was bound to live pretty
much as he did. Had he any relations or friends? Was he rich or poor?
Nobody could give an answer to these questions. I myself never saw
Gobseck |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Iron Puddler by James J. Davis: own work. The things he taught me I have seen tested in his long
life, proved true. He never expected any gift from life. I
thought once to surprise him. I wanted to buy a fine house and
give it to him. He wouldn't have it. He stayed in his own little
cottage. It was not in his theory of life that a house should
come to him as a gift. It was a sound theory, and like a true
Welshman, he hangs on to it to the end. He is a good man, and the
fruits that his life of labor has brought forth are good fruits.
CHAPTER IV
SHE SINGS TO HER NEST
From my mother I learned to sing. She was always working and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Ion by Plato: same things; and that almost all poets do speak of the same things?
ION: Why then, Socrates, do I lose attention and go to sleep and have
absolutely no ideas of the least value, when any one speaks of any other
poet; but when Homer is mentioned, I wake up at once and am all attention
and have plenty to say?
SOCRATES: The reason, my friend, is obvious. No one can fail to see that
you speak of Homer without any art or knowledge. If you were able to speak
of him by rules of art, you would have been able to speak of all other
poets; for poetry is a whole.
ION: Yes.
SOCRATES: And when any one acquires any other art as a whole, the same may
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