| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Animal Farm by George Orwell: and throughout that year a wave of rebelliousness ran through the
countryside. Bulls which had always been tractable suddenly turned savage,
sheep broke down hedges and devoured the clover, cows kicked the pail
over, hunters refused their fences and shot their riders on to the other
side. Above all, the tune and even the words of 'Beasts of England' were
known everywhere. It had spread with astonishing speed. The human beings
could not contain their rage when they heard this song, though they
pretended to think it merely ridiculous. They could not understand, they
said, how even animals could bring themselves to sing such contemptible
rubbish. Any animal caught singing it was given a flogging on the spot.
And yet the song was irrepressible. The blackbirds whistled it in the
Animal Farm |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac: DE BALZAC.
Mme. Vauquer (nee de Conflans) is an elderly person, who for the
past forty years has kept a lodging-house in the Rue Nueve-
Sainte-Genevieve, in the district that lies between the Latin
Quarter and the Faubourg Saint-Marcel. Her house (known in the
neighborhood as the Maison Vauquer) receives men and women, old
and young, and no word has ever been breathed against her
respectable establishment; but, at the same time, it must be said
that as a matter of fact no young woman has been under her roof
for thirty years, and that if a young man stays there for any
length of time it is a sure sign that his allowance must be of
Father Goriot |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Memorabilia by Xenophon: off this pack of people who seek to injure you?
I should not at all mind (he answered), if I were not afraid he might
turn again and rend his keeper.
What! (rejoined Socrates), do you not see that to gratify a man like
yourself is far pleasanter as a matter of self-interest than to
quarrel with you? You may be sure there are plenty of people here who
will take the greatest pride in making you their friend.
Accordingly, they sought out Archedemus,[2] a practical man with a
clever tongue in his head[3] but poor; the fact being, he was not the
sort to make gain by hook or by crook, but a lover of honesty and of
too good a nature himself to make his living as a pettifogger.[4]
The Memorabilia |
