| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: the heed that a mother could bestow upon her child.
"It is all over, death is very near," added Benassis, who remained
standing by the bedside.
The old woman gazed at the dying form, with her hands on her hips. A
few tears stole down her cheeks. Genestas remained silent. He was
unable to explain to himself how it was that the death of a being that
concerned him so little should affect him so much. Unconsciously he
shared the feeling of boundless pity that these hapless creatures
excite among the dwellers in the sunless valleys wherein Nature has
placed them. This sentiment has degenerated into a kind of religious
superstition in families to which cretins belong; but does it not
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: side had too often had recourse to their legal advisers, and knew them
too well to try to "draw them out," in lorette language.
Conversation, perfumed with seven cigars, at first was as fantastic as
a kid let loose, but finally it settled down upon the strategy of the
constant war waged in Paris between creditors and debtors.
Now, if you will be so good as to recall the history and antecedents
of the guests, you will know that in all Paris, you could scarcely
find a group of men with more experience in this matter; the
professional men on one hand, and the artists on the other, were
something in the position of magistrates and criminals hobnobbing
together. A set of Bixiou's drawings to illustrate life in the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Crowd by Gustave le Bon: technical details it is unable to understand, naturally hearkens
to the public prosecutor, arguing that, after all, the affair has
been investigated by magistrates trained to unravel the most
intricate situations. Who, then, are the real authors of the
error--the jurymen or the magistrates? We should cling
vigorously to the jury. It constitutes, perhaps, the only
category of crowd that cannot be replaced by any individuality.
It alone can temper the severity of the law, which, equal for
all, ought in principle to be blind and to take no cognisance of
particular cases. Inaccessible to pity, and heeding nothing but
the text of the law, the judge in his professional severity would
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