| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Juana by Honore de Balzac: Madame Diard knew nothing of her husband's infernal life. Glad of his
abandonment, she felt no curiosity about him, and all her hours were
occupied. She devoted what money she had to the education of her
children, wishing to make men of them, and giving them straight-
forward reasons, without, however, taking the bloom from their young
imaginations. Through them alone came her interests and her emotions;
consequently, she suffered no longer from her blemished life. Her
children were to her what they are to many mothers for a long period
of time,--a sort of renewal of their own existence. Diard was now an
accidental circumstance, not a participator in her life, and since he
had ceased to be the father and the head of the family, Juana felt
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: judgment the ignorance and baseness of this fellow, together with his
goodwill, are worth a great deal more to them than your superior
person's virtue and wisdom, coupled with animosity. What it comes to,
therefore, is that a state founded upon such institutions will not be
the best state;[17] but, given a democracy, these are the right means
to procure its preservation. The People, it must be borne in mind,
does not demand that the city should be well governed and itself a
slave. It desires to be free and to be master.[18] As to bad
legislation it does not concern itself about that.[19] In fact, what
you believe to be bad legislation is the very source of the People's
strength and freedom. But if you seek for good legislation, in the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll: plate, where it instantly attaches itself to the mutton already there.
Soon one of the plates, furnished with a complete slice of mutton and
two potatoes, was handed up to the presiding gentleman, who quietly
replaced the slice on the joint, and the potatoes in the dish.
Their conversation was, if possible, more bewildering than their mode
of dining. It began by the youngest girl suddenly, and without
provocation, addressing her eldest sister.
"Oh, you wicked story-teller!" she said.
I expected a sharp reply from the sister; but, instead of this, she
turned laughingly to her father, and said, in a very loud stage-whisper,
"To be a bride!"
Sylvie and Bruno |
