| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: him. This friend, the head of a rather important house in Nuremburg,
was a stout worthy German, a man of taste and erudition, above all a
man of pipes, having a fine, broad, Nuremburgian face, with a square
open forehead adorned by a few sparse locks of yellowish hair. He was
the type of the sons of that pure and noble Germany, so fertile in
honorable natures, whose peaceful manners and morals have never been
lost, even after seven invasions.
This stranger laughed with simplicity, listened attentively, and drank
remarkably well, seeming to like champagne as much perhaps as he liked
his straw-colored Johannisburger. His name was Hermann, which is that
of most Germans whom authors bring upon their scene. Like a man who
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne: THE man who either disdains or fears to walk up a dark entry may be
an excellent good man, and fit for a hundred things, but he will
not do to make a good Sentimental Traveller. - I count little of
the many things I see pass at broad noonday, in large and open
streets. - Nature is shy, and hates to act before spectators; but
in such an unobserved corner you sometimes see a single short scene
of hers worth all the sentiments of a dozen French plays compounded
together, - and yet they are absolutely fine; - and whenever I have
a more brilliant affair upon my hands than common, as they suit a
preacher just as well as a hero, I generally make my sermon out of
'em; - and for the text, - "Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: a day before its time, for it comes only when all other means
of progress and enlightenment have failed. Whether the oppressed
and despairing bondman, no longer able to repress his deep yearnings
for manhood, or the tyrant, in his pride and impatience, takes the initiative,
and strikes the blow for a firmer hold and a longer lease of oppression,
the result is the same,--society is instructed, or may be.
Such are the limitations of the common mind, and so thoroughly
engrossing are the cares of common life, that only the few among
men can discern through the glitter and dazzle of present prosperity
the dark outlines of approaching disasters, even though they may have
come up to our very gates, and are already within striking distance.
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