| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: Two months later, Messieurs Protez and Chiffreville, manufacturers of
chemical products, sent in a schedule of accounts rendered, which
amounted to over one hundred thousand francs. Madame Claes and
Pierquin studied the document with an ever-increasing surprise. Though
some articles, entered in commercial and scientific terms, were
unintelligible to them, they were frightened to see entries of
precious metals and diamonds of all kinds, though in small quantities.
The large sum total of the debt was explained by the multiplicity of
the articles, by the precautions needed in transporting some of them,
more especially valuable machinery, by the exorbitant price of certain
rare chemicals, and finally by the cost of instruments made to order
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: Slaves appeared upon every housetop with gorgeous silks
and costly furs, laying them in the sun for airing.
Jewel-encrusted women lolled even thus early upon the carven
balconies before their sleeping apartments. Later in the day
they would repair to the roofs when the slaves had arranged
couches and pitched silken canopies to shade them from the sun.
Strains of inspiring music broke pleasantly from open windows,
for the Martians have solved the problem of attuning the
nerves pleasantly to the sudden transition from sleep to
waking that proves so difficult a thing for most Earth folk.
Above him raced the long, light passenger fliers, plying,
Thuvia, Maid of Mars |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: "You must be ill-informed as to the secrets of your king. His Holiness
has bound himself to give to France three pearls of inestimable value,
namely: Genoa, Milan, and Naples."
The Pope left Sebastiano Montecuculi to present himself to the court
of France, to which the count offered his services, complaining of his
treatment by Antonio di Leyva and Ferdinando di Gonzago, for which
reason his services were accepted. Montecuculi was not made a part of
Catherine's household, which was wholly composed of French men and
women, for, by a law of the monarchy, the execution of which the Pope
saw with great satisfaction, Catherine was naturalized by letters-
patent as a Frenchwoman before the marriage. Montecuculi was appointed
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