| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: bank, my Territorial Bank, rested upon--"
"Nothing at all?" exclaimed Gaudissart, interrupting the good-man.
"Nothing at all? What do you call sickness, and afflictions, and
poverty, and passions? Don't go off on exceptional points."
"No, no! no points," said the lunatic.
"Now, what's the result of all this?" cried Gaudissart. "To you, a
banker, I can sum up the profits in a few words. Listen. A man lives;
he has a future; he appears well; he lives, let us say, by his art; he
wants money; he tries to get it,--he fails. Civilization withholds
cash from this man whose thought could master civilization, and ought
to master it, and will master it some day with a brush, a chisel, with
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Distinguished Provincial at Paris by Honore de Balzac: practical philosopher. His worldly wisdom, his genius for observation,
his contempt for fame ("fuss," as he calls it) have not seared a kind
heart. He is as energetic on behalf of another as he is careless where
his own interests are concerned; and if he bestirs himself, it is for
a friend. Living up to his Rabelaisian mask, he is no enemy to good
cheer, though he never goes out of his way to find it; he is
melancholy and gay. His friends dubbed him the "Dog of the Regiment."
You could have no better portrait of the man than his nickname.
Three more of the band, at least as remarkable as the friends who have
just been sketched in outline, were destined to fall by the way. Of
these, Meyraux was the first. Meyraux died after stirring up the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: have some for your position in the community. The idea of your going around
places gawping into a female's eyes like a love-sick pup! I can understand a
fellow slipping once, but I don't propose to see a fellow that's been as
chummy with me as you have getting started on the downward path and sneaking
off from his wife, even as cranky a one as Zilla, to go woman-chasing--"
"Oh, you're a perfectly moral little husband!"
"I am, by God! I've never looked at any woman except Myra since I've been
married--practically--and I never will! I tell you there's nothing to
immorality. It don't pay. Can't you see, old man, it just makes Zilla still
crankier?"
Slight of resolution as he was of body, Paul threw his snow-beaded overcoat on
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