| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: mistress of the house, there were as many men as women.
Chance never exerted itself to make wiser preparations than those
which opened the way to a meeting between d'Arthez and Madame de
Cadignan. The princess is still considered one of the chief
authorities on dress, which, to women, is the first of arts. On this
occasion she wore a gown of blue velvet with flowing white sleeves,
and a tulle guimpe, slightly frilled and edged with blue, covering the
shoulders, and rising nearly to the throat, as we see in several of
Raffaele's portraits. Her maid had dressed her hair with white
heather, adroitly placed among its blond cascades, which were one of
the great beauties to which she owed her celebrity.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift: discourse to be intended only in defence of nominal Christianity,
the other having been for some time wholly laid aside by general
consent, as utterly inconsistent with all our present schemes of
wealth and power.
But why we should therefore cut off the name and title of
Christians, although the general opinion and resolution be so
violent for it, I confess I cannot (with submission) apprehend the
consequence necessary. However, since the undertakers propose such
wonderful advantages to the nation by this project, and advance
many plausible objections against the system of Christianity, I
shall briefly consider the strength of both, fairly allow them
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: And fear, there where she sat, froze the woman to stone:
Not fear of the crazy boat and the weltering deep alone;
But a keener fear of the night, the dark, and the ghostly hour,
And the thing that drove the canoe with more than a mortal's power
And more than a mortal's boldness. For much she knew of the dead
That haunt and fish upon reefs, toiling, like men, for bread,
And traffic with human fishers, or slay them and take their ware,
Till the hour when the star of the dead (15) goes down, and the morning air
Blows, and the cocks are singing on shore. And surely she knew
The speechless thing at her side belonged to the grave. (16)
It blew
Ballads |
