| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Legend of Montrose by Walter Scott: steel bonnets, and headpieces, and the more ancient haborgeons,
or shirts of reticulated mail, with hood and sleeves
corresponding to it, all hung in confusion about the walls, and
would have formed a month's amusement to a member of a modern
antiquarian society. But such things were too familiar, to
attract much observation on the part of the present spectators.
There was a large clumsy oaken table, which the hasty hospitality
of the domestic who had before spoken, immediately spread with
milk, butter, goat-milk cheese, a flagon of beer, and a flask of
usquebae, designed for the refreshment of Lord Menteith; while an
inferior servant made similar preparations at the bottom of the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Memorabilia by Xenophon: tactical arrangement?
The Youth. Nothing of the sort.
Soc. And yet there are and must be innumerable circumstances in which
the same ordering of march or battle will be out of place.
The Youth. I assure you he did not draw any of these fine
distinctions.
He did not, did not he? (he answered). Bless me! Go back to him again,
then, and ply him with questions; if he really has the science, and is
not lost to all sense of shame, he will blush to have taken your money
and then to have sent you away empty.
II
The Memorabilia |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: Genesis. Madame de Vandenesse, having now become intelligently clever,
was aware that such sentiments were not permissible, and she refrained
from confiding them to her "dear little husband." Her genuine
simplicity had not invented any other name for him; for one can't call
up in cold blood that delightfully exaggerated language which love
imparts to its victims in the midst of flames.
Vandenesse, glad of this adorable reserve, kept his wife, by
deliberate calculations, in the temperate regions of conjugal
affection. He never condescended to seek a reward or even an
acknowledgment of the infinite pains which he gave himself; his wife
thought his luxury and good taste her natural right, and she felt no
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