| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: sure there had been some infamy. In one way or another this
creature had been coldly sacrificed. That was why at the last as
well as the first he must still leave him out and out.
CHAPTER IX.
AND yet this was no solution, especially after he had talked again
to his friend of all it had been his plan she should finally do for
him. He had talked in the other days, and she had responded with a
frankness qualified only by a courteous reluctance, a reluctance
that touched him, to linger on the question of his death. She had
then practically accepted the charge, suffered him to feel he could
depend upon her to be the eventual guardian of his shrine; and it
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: in judgment on the Prince de Conde!
"Here!" said the old man, calling to the maid, "go and ask friend
Lallier if he will come and sup with us and bring the wine; we'll
furnish the victuals. Tell him, above all, to bring his daughter."
Lecamus, the syndic of the guild of furriers, was a handsome old man
of sixty, with white hair, and a broad, open brow. As court furrier
for the last forty years, he had witnessed all the revolutions of the
reign of Francois I. He had seen the arrival at the French court of
the young girl Catherine de' Medici, then scarcely fifteen years of
age. He had observed her giving way before the Duchesse d'Etampes, her
father-in-law's mistress; giving way before the Duchesse de
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli: and they will be tightly held to serve the prince with fidelity,
inasmuch as they know it to be very necessary for them to cancel by
deeds the bad impression which he had formed of them; and thus the
prince always extracts more profit from them than from those who,
serving him in too much security, may neglect his affairs. And since
the matter demands it, I must not fail to warn a prince, who by means
of secret favours has acquired a new state, that he must well consider
the reasons which induced those to favour him who did so; and if it be
not a natural affection towards him, but only discontent with their
government, then he will only keep them friendly with great trouble
and difficulty, for it will be impossible to satisfy them. And
The Prince |
