| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Memorabilia by Xenophon: battle. Do not despise men of economic genius, Nicomachides; the
difference between the devotion requisite to private affairs and to
affairs of state is merely one of quantity. For the rest the parallel
holds strictly, and in this respect pre-eminently, that both are
concerned with human instruments: which human beings, moreover, are of
one type and temperament, whether we speak of devotion to public
affairs or of the administration of private property. To fare well in
either case is given to those who know the secret of dealing with
humanity, whereas the absence of that knowledge will as certainly
imply in either case a fatal note of discord.[11]
[10] Lit. "as long as he is unprepared."
The Memorabilia |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Collection of Antiquities by Honore de Balzac: gibe or slight, are the last of all to heal. When the Chevalier turned
his back on mixed society and entrenched himself on the Mons Sacer of
the aristocracy, his witticisms thenceforward were directed at du
Croisier's salon; he stirred up the fires of war, not knowing how far
the spirit of revenge was to urge the rival faction. None but purists
and loyal gentlemen and women sure one of another entered the Hotel
d'Esgrignon; they committed no indiscretions of any kind; they had
their ideas, true or false, good or bad, noble or trivial, but there
was nothing to laugh at in all this. If the Liberals meant to make the
nobles ridiculous, they were obliged to fasten on the political
actions of their opponents; while the intermediate party, composed of
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: while fresh faces drifted here and there like rose petals blown by the
sad horns around the floor.
Through this twilight universe Daisy began to move again with the
season; suddenly she was again keeping half a dozen dates a day with
half a dozen men, and drowsing asleep at dawn with the beads and
chiffon of an evening dress tangled among dying orchids on the floor
beside her bed. And all the time something within her was crying for a
decision. She wanted her life shaped now, immediately--and the decision
must be made by some force--of love, of money, of unquestionable
practicality--that was close at hand.
That force took shape in the middle of spring with the arrival of Tom
The Great Gatsby |
