| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Lesser Bourgeoisie by Honore de Balzac: communication which announced it, was so convinced of the existence of
this star that a deputation was appointed to visit the domicile of the
modern Galileo and compliment him in the name of the whole body. And
yet this star is not visible to either the eye or the telescope! It is
only by the power of calculation and induction that its existence and
the place it occupies in the heavens have been proved in the most
irrefutable manner: 'There MUST be THERE a hitherto unknown star; I
cannot see it, but I am sure of it,'--that is what this man of science
said to the Academy, whom he instantly convinced by his deductions.
And do you know, messieurs, who is this Christopher Columbus of a new
celestial world? An old man, two-thirds blind, who has scarcely eyes
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Whirligigs by O. Henry: with dangerously narrowing eyes. The rich, sweet scent
touched him somewhere beneath his ice and iron.
"I don't know what I've been thinking about, Mex,"
he remarked in his usual mild drawl, "to have forgot all
about a Christmas present I got to give. I'm going to
ride over to-morrow night and shoot Madison Lane in
his own house. He got my girl -- Rosita would have
had me if he hadn't cut into the game. I wonder why I
happened to overlook it up to now?"
"Ah, shucks, Kid," said Mexican, "don't talk foolish-
ness. You know you can't get within a mile of Mad
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: upon those parts, that is to say, the city, the eight parishes over the
river, with the parishes of Aldgate, Whitechappel, and Stepney; and
this was the time that the bills came up to such a monstrous height as
that I mentioned before, and that eight or nine, and, as I believe, ten or
twelve thousand a week, died; for it is my settled opinion that they
never could come at any just account of the numbers, for the reasons
which I have given already.
Nay, one of the most eminent physicians, who has since published
in Latin an account of those times, and of his observations says that in
one week there died twelve thousand people, and that particularly
there died four thousand in one night; though I do not remember that
A Journal of the Plague Year |
