| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: red calico curtain produced a magical effect. This crimson mantle cast
a rosy tint upon the whitewashed walls; a thought divine seemed to
glow upon the altar and clasp the poor nave as if to warm it. The
passage which led to the sacristy exhibited on one of its walls the
patron saint of the village, a large Saint John the Baptist with his
sheep, carved in wood and horribly painted.
But in spite of all this poverty the church was not without some
tender harmonies delightful to choice souls, and set in charming
relief by their own colors. The rich dark tones of the wood relieved
the white of the walls and blended with the triumphal crimson cast on
the chancel. This trinity of color was a reminder of the grand
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas: the marquise had disappeared, her envious enemy, not being
able to resist the desire to satisfy herself that her
suspicions were well founded, advanced stealthily towards it
like a panther and seized the envelope. "Ah!" she said,
gnashing her teeth, "it was indeed a letter from M. Fouquet
she was reading when I arrived," and then darted out of the
room. During this interval, the marquise, having arrived
behind the rampart, as it were, of her door, felt that her
strength was failing her; for a moment she remained rigid,
pale and motionless as a statue, and then, like a statue
shaken on its base by an earthquake, tottered and fell
Ten Years Later |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from First Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations,
and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular
opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people.
Whoever rejects it does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or to despotism.
Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement,
is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle,
anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left.
I do not forget the position, assumed by some, that Constitutional
questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court; nor do I deny
that such decisions must be binding, in any case, upon the parties
to a suit, as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled
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