| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: caught in a trap, the more bitter he will be against me."
"What if I get him dismissed altogether?"
Rabourdin looked at his wife in amazement.
"I am thinking only of your advancement; it was high time, my poor
husband," continued Celestine. "But you are mistaking the dog for the
game," she added, after a pause. "In a few days des Lupeaulx will have
accomplished all that I want of him. While you are trying to speak to
the minister, and before you can even see him on business, I shall
have seen him and spoken with him. You are worn out in trying to bring
that plan of your brain to birth,--a plan which you have been hiding
from me; but you will find that in three months your wife has
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: tithes against their conscience to an episcopal curate.
Secondly, The poorer tenants will have something valuable of
their own, which by law may be made liable to a distress, and
help to pay their landlord's rent, their corn and cattle being
already seized, and money a thing unknown.
Thirdly, Whereas the maintainance of an hundred thousand
children, from two years old, and upwards, cannot be computed at
less than ten shillings a piece per annum, the nation's stock
will be thereby encreased fifty thousand pounds per annum,
besides the profit of a new dish, introduced to the tables of all
gentlemen of fortune in the kingdom, who have any refinement in
 A Modest Proposal |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Kenilworth by Walter Scott: time been better spent than ours, or have you any news of that
unhappy maiden, who, being for so many years the principal joy of
this broken-down house, is now proved our greatest unhappiness?
Have you not at least discovered her place of residence?"
"I have," replied Tressilian. "Know you Cumnor Place, near
Oxford?"
"Surely," said the clergyman; "it was a house of removal for the
monks of Abingdon."
"Whose arms," said Master Michael, "I have seen over a stone
chimney in the hall,--a cross patonce betwixt four martlets."
"There," said Tressilian, "this unhappy maiden resides, in
 Kenilworth |