The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac: with me. His face had struck me. He had one of those heroic heads,
stamped with the seal of warfare, and on which the battles of Napoleon
are written. Besides, he had that frank, good-humored expression which
always impresses me favorably. He was without doubt one of those
troopers who are surprised at nothing, who find matter for laughter in
the contortions of a dying comrade, who bury or plunder him quite
light-heartedly, who stand intrepidly in the way of bullets;--in fact,
one of those men who waste no time in deliberation, and would not
hesitate to make friends with the devil himself. After looking very
attentively at the proprietor of the menagerie getting out of his box,
my companion pursed up his lips with an air of mockery and contempt,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: And seek them in these bowers;
Where winds, sometimes, our woods perhaps may shake,
But blust'ring care could never tempest make,
Nor murmurs e'er come nigh us,
Saving of fountains that glide by us.
Here's no fantastick mask, nor dance,
But of our kids that frisk and prance;
Nor wars are seen
Unless upon the green
Two harmless lambs are butting one the other,
Which done, both bleating run, each to his mother
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela: the honeyed voices of a female chorus rose melancholy
and grave. To the strains of a guitar, the young girls of
the town sang the "Mysteries."
"What's the fiesta, lady?" Venancio asked of an old
woman who was running toward the church.
"The Sacred Heart of Jesus!" answered the pious
woman, panting.
They remembered that one year ago they had captured
Zacatecas. They grew sadder still.
Juchipila, like the other towns they had passed through
on their way from Tepic, by way of Jalisco, Aguasca-
The Underdogs |