| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Research Magnificent by H. G. Wells: choose simply because those men down there were not free. HE WAS
SPENDING THEIR LEISURE. . . . Not once but many times with Prothero
had he used the phrase RICHESSE OBLIGE. Now he remembered it. He
began to remember a mass of ideas that had been overlaid and
stifling within him. This was what Merkle and the club servants and
the entertainments and engagements and his mother and the artistic
touts and the theatrical touts and the hunting and the elaboration
of games and--Mrs. Skelmersdale and all that had clustered thickly
round him in London had been hiding from him. Those men below there
had not been trusted to choose their work; they had been given it.
And he had been trusted. . . .
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry: and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they
are wisest. They are the magi.
End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of THE GIFT OF THE MAGI.
The Gift of the Magi |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: quickly. The softness of the atmosphere, the beauty of the climate, a
certain ease of life and joviality of manners, smother before long the
sentiment of art, narrow the widest heart, and enervate the strongest
will. Transplant the Tourangian, and his fine qualities develop and
lead to great results, as we may see in many spheres of action: look
at Rabelais and Semblancay, Plantin the printer and Descartes,
Boucicault, the Napoleon of his day, and Pinaigrier, who painted most
of the colored glass in our cathedrals; also Verville and Courier. But
the Tourangian, distinguished though he may be in other regions, sits
in his own home like an Indian on his mat or a Turk on his divan. He
employs his wit in laughing at his neighbor and in making merry all
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