| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Ursula by Honore de Balzac: for a place in the brilliant world of Paris, this son of the Minorets
reached a nobler destiny than he had, perhaps, dreamed of at the
start. He devoted himself, in the first instance, to medicine, a
profession which demands both talent and a cheerful nature, but the
latter qualification even more than talent. Backed by Dupont de
Nemours, connected by a lucky chance with the Abbe Morellet (whom
Voltaire nicknamed Mords-les), and protected by the Encyclopedists,
Doctor Minoret attached himself as liegeman to the famous Doctor
Bordeu, the friend of Diderot, D'Alembert, Helvetius, the Baron
d'Holbach and Grimm, in whose presence he felt himself a mere boy.
These men, influenced by Bordeu's example, became interested in
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: wide into the air at the lightest jar. Try it and see. Say that you
believe in God, or do not; say that Democracy is the key to the
millennium, or the survival of the unfittest; that Labor is worse than
the Kaiser, or better; that drink is a demon, or that wine ministers to
the health and the cheer of man--say what you please, and the yeas and
nays will pelt you. So insecurely do the plainest, oldest truths dangle
in a mob of disheveled brains, that it is likely, did you assert twice
two continues to equal four and we had best stick to the multiplication
table, anonymous letters would come to you full of passionate abuse.
Thinking comes hard to all of us. To some it never comes at all, because
their heads lack the machinery. How many of such are there among us, and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Under the Red Robe by Stanley Weyman: watchful. I knew that the man was plotting revenge; that he
would not hesitate to plant his knife between my ribs should I
give him the chance; and I could find only one alternative to
remaining awake. Had I been bloody-minded, I should have chosen
it and solved the question at once and in my favour by shooting
him as he sat.
But I have never been a cruel man, and I could not find it in my
heart to do this. The silence of the mountain and the sky-which
seemed a thing apart from the roar of the torrent and not to be
broken by it--awed me. The vastness of the solitude in which we
sat, the dark void above, through which the stars kept shooting,
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