| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac: about his eyes, but he had the smooth, plump hands of a stout man. His
blue cloth coat, a little rubbed and worn, and the creases and
shininess of his trousers, traces of hard wear that the clothes-brush
fails to remove, would impress a superficial observer with the idea
that here was a thrifty and upright human being, sufficient of the
philosopher or of the aristocrat to wear shabby clothes. But,
unluckily, it is easy to find penny-wise people who will prove weak,
wasteful, or incompetent in the capital things of life.
The cashier wore the ribbon of the Legion of Honor at his button-
hole, for he had been a major of dragoons in the time of the Emperor.
M. de Nucingen, who had been a contractor before he became a banker,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: SOCRATES: And at present these notions have just been stirred up in him,
as in a dream; but if he were frequently asked the same questions, in
different forms, he would know as well as any one at last?
MENO: I dare say.
SOCRATES: Without any one teaching him he will recover his knowledge for
himself, if he is only asked questions?
MENO: Yes.
SOCRATES: And this spontaneous recovery of knowledge in him is
recollection?
MENO: True.
SOCRATES: And this knowledge which he now has must he not either have
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from An International Episode by Henry James: "Ah, now don't say that," he cried. "That's the worst thing
you could possibly say."
"No," she rejoined, "it is not so bad as to say that I had expected
nothing of you."
"I don't know. Give me a notion of the sort of thing you expected."
"Well," said Bessie Alden, "that you would be more what I should like to be--
what I should try to be--in your place."
"Ah, my place!" exclaimed Lord Lambeth. "You are always talking
about my place.!"
The young girl looked at him; he thought she colored a little;
and for a moment she made no rejoinder.
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