| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy: again set on her face the undetermined and formless
misery which it had worn on her first arrival.
She peeped into her grandfather's room, through which
the fresh autumn air was blowing from the open window.
Her eye was arrested by what was a familiar sight enough,
though it broke upon her now with a new significance.
It was a brace of pistols, hanging near the head of her
grandfather's bed, which he always kept there loaded,
as a precaution against possible burglars, the house being
very lonely. Eustacia regarded them long, as if they
were the page of a book in which she read a new and a
Return of the Native |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: the citizen who is so deeply impressed with a sense of the importance
of the laws that he will see them carried out even at his own cost and
inconvenience. If you let the criminal go in peace, are you not making
yourself answerable for the crimes he will commit?"
"It is all of a piece," said Benassis. "If the mayors kept their roads
in better order, there would not be so many footpaths. And if the
members of Municipal Councils knew a little better, they would uphold
the small landowner and the mayor when the two combine to oppose the
establishment of unfair easements. The fact that chateau, cottage,
field, and tree are all equally sacred would then be brought home in
every way to the ignorant; they would be made to understand that Right
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli: [*] Battle of Caravaggio, 15th September 1448.
[+] Johanna II of Naples, the widow of Ladislao, King of Naples.
[%] Giovanni Acuto. An English knight whose name was Sir John
Hawkwood. He fought in the English wars in France, and was
knighted by Edward III; afterwards he collected a body of troops
and went into Italy. These became the famous "White Company." He
took part in many wars, and died in Florence in 1394. He was born
about 1320 at Sible Hedingham, a village in Essex. He married
Domnia, a daughter of Bernabo Visconti.
[#] Carmignuola. Francesco Bussone, born at Carmagnola about 1390,
executed at Venice, 5th May 1432.
The Prince |
