| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: "Nothing could be better!" cried the doctor cheerily.
"Will she be confined soon?" both the mothers asked together.
"This week beyond a doubt. Is Vigneau away from home?" he asked, after
a pause.
"Yes, sir," the young wife answered; "he is hurrying about settling
his business affairs, so as to be able to stay at home during my
confinement, the dear man!"
"Well, my children, go on and prosper; continue to increase your
wealth and to add to your family."
The cleanliness of the almost ruinous dwelling filled Genestas with
admiration.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Russia in 1919 by Arthur Ransome: in dark spectacles, dressed more like a banker than like a
Bolshevik. It was clear that the collection of the tax had not
been as successful as he had previously suggested. I was
interested in his reference to the double purpose of the tax
and in the reasons he gave for its comparative failure.
The tax had a fiscal purpose, partly to cover deficit,
partly by drawing in paper money to raise the value of the
rouble. It had also a political purpose. It was intended to
affect the propertied classes only, and thus to weaken the
Kulaks (hard-fists, rich peasants) in the villages and to teach the
poorer peasants the meaning of the revolution.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: the annals of European justice.
This is what Marcas told us during the small hours, sandwiching his
discourse with slices of bread spread with cheese and washed down with
wine. All the tobacco was burned out. Now and then the hackney coaches
clattering across the Place de l'Odeon, or the omnibuses toiling past,
sent up their dull rumbling, as if to remind us that Paris was still
close to us.
His family lived at Vitre; his father and mother had fifteen hundred
francs a year in the funds. He had received an education gratis in a
Seminary, but had refused to enter the priesthood. He felt in himself
the fires of immense ambition, and had come to Paris on foot at the
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