| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: was endowed with the nervous temperament which in a man gives rise to
fine qualities, his slender build and pale complexion were not at
first sight attractive; his black eyes betrayed great vivacity, but he
was taciturn in company, and there was nothing in his appearance to
reveal the gift for oratory which subsequently distinguished him, on
the Right, in the legislative assembly under the Restoration.
The Comtesse de Vaudremont, a tall woman, rather fat, with a skin of
dazzling whiteness, a small head that she carried well, and the
immense advantage of inspiring love by the graciousness of her manner,
was one of those beings who keep all the promise of their beauty.
The pair, who for a few minutes were the centre of general
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Amazing Interlude by Mary Roberts Rinehart: words might carry conviction where all his protests had failed.
"I shall love you all the years of my life," he wrote. "At any time, in
any place, you may come to me and know that I am waiting. Great love
like this comes only once to any man, and once come to him it never goes
away. At any time in the years to come you may know with certainty that
you are still to me what you are now, the love of my life.
"Sometimes I think, dearest - I may call you that once, now that you
have left me - that far away you will hear this call of mine and come
back to me. Perhaps you will never come. Perhaps I shall not live. I
feel to-day that I do not care greatly to live.
"If that is to be, then think of me somewhere, perhaps with Rene by my
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Laches by Plato: Courage, therefore, is the knowledge of good and evil generally. But he
who has the knowledge of good and evil generally, must not only have
courage, but also temperance, justice, and every other virtue. Thus, a
single virtue would be the same as all virtues (compare Protagoras). And
after all the two generals, and Socrates, the hero of Delium, are still in
ignorance of the nature of courage. They must go to school again, boys,
old men and all.
Some points of resemblance, and some points of difference, appear in the
Laches when compared with the Charmides and Lysis. There is less of
poetical and simple beauty, and more of dramatic interest and power. They
are richer in the externals of the scene; the Laches has more play and
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