| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: where innumerable petty posts were regular articles of sale, anyone,
it seems, who had saved a little money, found it most profitable to
invest it in a beadledom of some kind--to the great detriment of the
country, for he thus withdrew his capital from trade; but to his own
clear gain, for he thereby purchased some immunity from public
burdens, and, as it were, compounded once and for all for his taxes.
The petty German princes, it seems, followed the example of France,
and sold their little beadledoms likewise; but even where offices
were not sold, they must be obtained by any and every means, by
everyone who desired not to be as other men were, and to become
Notables, as they were called in France; so he migrated from the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Smalcald Articles by Dr. Martin Luther: become unprofitable. And Acts 17, 30: God now commandeth all
men everywhere to repent. "All men," he says; no one excepted
who is a man. This repentance teaches us to discern sin,
namely, that we are altogether lost, and that there is nothing
good in us from head to foot [both within and without], and
that we must absolutely become new and other men.
This repentance is not piecemeal [partial] and beggarly
[fragmentary], like that which does penance for actual sins,
nor is it uncertain like that. For it does not debate what is
or is not sin, but hurls everything on a heap, and says: All
in us is nothing but sin [affirms that, with respect to us,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: reason his services were accepted. Montecuculi was not made a part of
Catherine's household, which was wholly composed of French men and
women, for, by a law of the monarchy, the execution of which the Pope
saw with great satisfaction, Catherine was naturalized by letters-
patent as a Frenchwoman before the marriage. Montecuculi was appointed
in the first instance to the household of the queen, the sister of
Charles V. After a while he passed into the service of the dauphin as
cup-bearer.
The new Duchesse d'Orleans soon found herself a nullity at the court
of Francois I. Her young husband was in love with Diane de Poitiers,
who certainly, in the matter of birth, could rival Catherine, and was
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