| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott: "Upon my word, I didn't move it. It rolled a bit, perhaps,
but that is allowed. So, stand off please, and let me have a go
at the stake."
"We don't cheat in America, but you can, if you choose," said
Jo angrily.
"Yankees are a deal the most tricky, everybody knows. There
you go!" returned Fred, croqueting her ball far away.
Jo opened her lips to say something rude, but checked herself
in time, colored up to her forehead and stood a minute, hammering
down a wicket with all her might, while Fred hit the stake and
declared himself out with much exultation. She went off to get her
Little Women |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: under the expectation that his second son would never be dauphin.
Hence his fury when his eldest son was poisoned by the Florentine
Montecuculi. The d'Estes refused to recognize the Medici as Italian
princes. Those former merchants were in fact trying to solve the
impossible problem of maintaining a throne in the midst of republican
institutions. The title of grand-duke was only granted very tardily by
Philip the Second, king of Spain, to reward those Medici who bought it
by betraying France their benefactress, and servilely attaching
themselves to the court of Spain, which was at the very time covertly
counteracting them in Italy.
"Flatter none but your enemies," the famous saying of Catherine de'
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Apology by Xenophon: be, you know," he added, "that God out of his great kindness is
intervening in my behalf[14] to suffer me to close my life in the
ripeness of age, and by the gentlest of deaths. For if at this time
sentence of death be passed upon me, it is plain I shall be allowed to
meet an end which, in the opinion of those who have studied the
matter, is not only the easiest in itself, but one which will cause
the least trouble to one's friends,[15] while engendering the deepest
longing for the departed. For of necessity he will only be thought of
with regret and longing who leaves nothing behind unseemly or
discomfortable to haunt the imagination of those beside him, but,
sound of body, and his soul still capable of friendly repose, fades
The Apology |
