| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: mother. Saillard's salary from the government had always been four
thousand five hundred francs a year, and no more; his situation was a
blind alley that led nowhere, and had tempted no one to supersede him.
Those ninety thousand francs, put together sou by sou, were the fruit
therefore of a sordid economy unintelligently employed. In fact, the
Saillards did not know how better to manage their savings than to
carry them, five thousand francs at a time, to their notary, Monsieur
Sorbier, Cardot's predecessor, and let him invest them at five per
cent in first mortgages, with the wife's rights reserved in case the
borrower was married! In 1804 Madame Saillard obtained a government
office for the sale of stamped papers, a circumstance which brought a
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Passionate Pilgrim by William Shakespeare: If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice;
Well learned is that tongue that well can thee commend;
All ignorant that soul that sees thee without wonder;
Which is to me some praise, that I thy parts admire:
Thy eye Jove's lightning seems, thy voice his dreadful thunder,
Which, not to anger bent, is music and sweet fire.
Celestial as thou art, O do not love that wrong,
To sing heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue.
VI.
Scarce had the sun dried up the dewy morn,
And scarce the herd gone to the hedge for shade,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Marie by H. Rider Haggard: everything is for sale, at a price. I'll give you--let me see--oh, what
does the money matter when one has plenty? I'll give you a hundred
English pounds for that mare; and don't you think me a fool. I tell you
I mean to get it back, and more, at the great races down in the south.
Now what do you say?"
"I say that the mare is not for sale, Heer Pereira." Then a thought
struck me, or an inspiration, and, as has always been my fashion, I
acted on it at once. "But," I added slowly, "if you like, when I am a
bit stronger I'll shoot you a match for her, you staking your hundred
pounds and I staking the mare."
Pereira burst out laughing.
Marie |
