| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: cases. The pleader is thrown back on journalism, on politics, on
literature. In fact, the State, besieged for the smallest appointments
under the law, has ended by requiring that the applicants should have
some little fortune. The pear-shaped head of the grocer's son is
selected in preference to the square skull of a man of talent who has
not a sou. Work as he will, with all his energy, a young man, starting
from zero, may at the end of ten years find himself below the point he
set out from. In these days, talent must have the good luck which
secures success to the most incapable; nay, more, if it scorns the
base compromises which insure advancement to crawling mediocrity, it
will never get on.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: well as men under the figure of two winged steeds and a charioteer. No
connection is traced between the soul as the great motive power and the
triple soul which is thus imaged. There is no difficulty in seeing that
the charioteer represents the reason, or that the black horse is the symbol
of the sensual or concupiscent element of human nature. The white horse
also represents rational impulse, but the description, 'a lover of honour
and modesty and temperance, and a follower of true glory,' though similar,
does not at once recall the 'spirit' (thumos) of the Republic. The two
steeds really correspond in a figure more nearly to the appetitive and
moral or semi-rational soul of Aristotle. And thus, for the first time
perhaps in the history of philosophy, we have represented to us the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Mother by Owen Wister: Richard looked surprised. "Why, seven-fifteen P. M.," he replied. "The
tenth of March."
"Dark!" Mrs. Davenport exclaimed. "Mr. Field, you and Ethel were engaged
before the ferry boat landed at Desbrosses Street."
Richard and Ethel both sat straight up, but remained speechless.
"Pardon my interruption," said Mrs. Davenport, smiling. "I didn't want to
miss a single point in this story--do go on!"
Richard was obliged to burst out laughing, in which Ethel, after a
moment, followed him, though perhaps less heartily. And as he continued,
his blush subsided.
"With my Uncle Godfrey's legacy I was no longer dependent upon my salary,
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