| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: And is not your whole social economy summed up in terms of Power and
Pleasure?
" 'There are ten of us in Paris, silent, unknown kings, the arbiters
of your destinies. What is life but a machine set in motion by money?
Know this for certain--methods are always confounded with results; you
will never succeed in separating the soul from the senses, spirit from
matter. Gold is the spiritual basis of existing society.--The ten of
us are bound by the ties of common interest; we meet on certain days
of the week at the Cafe Themis near the Pont Neuf, and there, in
conclave, we reveal the mysteries of finance. No fortune can deceive
us; we are in possession of family secrets in all directions. We keep
Gobseck |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Pupil by Henry James: temporary lull, a relief from the sharpest pressure. The young man
frugally amended his wardrobe and even had a few francs in his
pocket. He thought the Moreens looked at him as if he were almost
too smart, as if they ought to take care not to spoil him. If Mr.
Moreen hadn't been such a man of the world he would perhaps have
spoken of the freedom of such neckties on the part of a
subordinate. But Mr. Moreen was always enough a man of the world
to let things pass - he had certainly shown that. It was singular
how Pemberton guessed that Morgan, though saying nothing about it,
knew something had happened. But three hundred francs, especially
when one owed money, couldn't last for ever; and when the treasure
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from War and the Future by H. G. Wells: houses and till their fields again. But I see now that not only
are homes and villages destroyed almost beyond recognition, but
the very fields are destroyed. They are wildernesses of shell
craters; the old worked soil is buried and great slabs of crude
earth have been flung up over it. No ordinary plough will travel
over this frozen sea, let along that everywhere chunks of timber,
horrible tangles of rusting wire, jagged fragments of big shells,
and a great number of unexploded shells are entangled in the
mess. Often this chaos is stained bright yellow by high
explosives, and across it run the twisting trenches and
communication trenches eight, ten, or twelve feet deep. These
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