The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin: and wherever she goes, the mules, like good children, follow
her. The affection of these animals for their madrinas saves
infinite trouble. If several large troops are turned into one
field to graze, in the morning the muleteers have only to lead
the madrinas a little apart, and tinkle their bells; although
there may be two or three hundred together, each mule
immediately knows the bell of its own madrina, and comes to
her. It is nearly impossible to lose an old mule; for if
detained for several hours by force, she will, by the power
of smell, like a dog, track out her companions, or rather the
madrina, for, according to the muleteer, she is the chief
 The Voyage of the Beagle |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: value through old Jerome-Nicolas' vinous eloquence. Old custom, he
told his son, was so deeply rooted in the district that he (David)
would only waste his pains if he gave them the finest things in life.
He himself had tried to sell them a better class of almanac than the
Double Liegeois on grocers' paper; and what came of it?--the original
Double Liegeois sold better than the most sumptuous calendars. David
would soon see the importance of these old-fashioned things when he
found he could get more for them than for the most costly new-fangled
articles.
"Aha! my boy, Paris is Paris, and the provinces are the provinces. If
a man came in from L'Houmeau with an order for wedding cards, and you
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: experiences--that money will not buy you service in the West.
When the hotel clerk--the man who awards your room to you and who
is supposed to give you information--when that resplendent
individual stoops to attend to your wants he does so whistling or
hum-ming or picking his teeth, or pauses to converse with some
one he knows. These performances, I gather, are to impress upon
you that he is a free man and your equal. From his general
appearance and the size of his diamonds he ought to be your
superior. There is no necessity for this swaggering
self-consciousness of freedom. Business is business, and the man
who is paid to attend to a man might reasonably devote his whole
|