| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: Gobseck I betook myself, and slowly one evening I made my way to the
Rue des Gres. My heart thumped heavily as I knocked at his door in the
gloomy house. I recollected all the things that he used to tell me, at
a time when I myself was very far from suspecting the violence of the
anguish awaiting those who crossed his threshold. Now it was I who was
about to beg and pray like so many others.
" 'Well, no, not THAT,' I said to myself; 'an honest man must keep his
self-respect wherever he goes. Success is not worth cringing for; let
us show him a front as decided as his own.'
"Daddy Gobseck had taken my room since I left the house, so as to have
no neighbor; he had made a little grated window too in his door since
Gobseck |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Moon-Face and Other Stories by Jack London: seen, but with his strong fingers he crumbled the rotten quartz away till both
hands were filled with glowing yellow. He rubbed the dirt away from fragment
after fragment, tossing them into the gold-pan. It was a treasure-hole. So
much had the quartz rotted away that there was less of it than there was of
gold. Now and again he found a piece to which no rock clung--a piece that was
all gold. A chunk, where the pick had laid open the heart of the gold,
glittered like a handful of yellow jewels, and he cocked his head at it and
slowly turned it around and over to observe the rich play of the light upon
it.
"Talk about yer Too Much Gold diggin's!" the man snorted contemptuously. "Why,
this diggin' 'd make it look like thirty cents. This diggin' is All Gold. An'
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: 17 HERIOT ROW, EDINBURGH [DECEMBER 1877].
MY DEAR SIR, - I am afraid you must already have condemned me for a
very idle fellow truly. Here it is more than two months since I
received your letter; I had no fewer than three journals to
acknowledge; and never a sign upon my part. If you have seen a
CORNHILL paper of mine upon idling, you will be inclined to set it
all down to that. But you will not be doing me justice. Indeed, I
have had a summer so troubled that I have had little leisure and
still less inclination to write letters. I was keeping the devil
at bay with all my disposable activities; and more than once I
thought he had me by the throat. The odd conditions of our
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