| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: the age." Let them beware in time; for when the many are on the
march, the few who stand still are certain to be walked over. There
are those among them who, like another section of the French
noblesse, are ready, more generously than wisely, to throw away
their own social and political advantages, and play (for it will
never be really more than playing) at democracy. Let them, too,
beware. The penknife and the axe should respect each other; for
they were wrought from the same steel: but the penknife will not be
wise in trying to fell trees. Let them accept their own position,
not in conceit and arrogance, but in fear and trembling; and see if
they cannot play the man therein, and save their own class; and with
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: desired to be alone in the Count's room.
" 'Do not go in,' he said; and I admired the child for his tone and
gesture; 'she is praying there.'
"Gobseck began to laugh that soundless laugh of his, but I felt too
much touched by the feeling in Ernest's little face to join in the
miser's sardonic amusement. When Ernest saw that we moved towards the
door, he planted himself in front of it, crying out, 'Mamma, here are
some gentlemen in black who want to see you.!'
"Gobseck lifted Ernest out of the way as if the child had been a
feather, and opened the door.
"What a scene it was that met our eyes! The room was in frightful
Gobseck |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: circumstance, almost necessarily closed. Your Church and
Damien's were in Hawaii upon a rivalry to do well: to help,
to edify, to set divine examples. You having (in one huge
instance) failed, and Damien succeeded, I marvel it should
not have occurred to you that you were doomed to silence;
that when you had been outstripped in that high rivalry, and
sat inglorious in the midst of your wellbeing, in your
pleasant room - and Damien, crowned with glories and horrors,
toiled and rotted in that pigsty of his under the cliffs of
Kalawao - you, the elect who would not, were the last man on
earth to collect and propagate gossip on the volunteer who
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