| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Duchess of Padua by Oscar Wilde: I know, Lord Cardinal, you have great revenues,
Rich abbey-lands, and tithes, and large estates
For preaching voluntary poverty.
DUCHESS
Nay but, my lord the Duke, be generous;
While we sit here within a noble house
[With shaded porticoes against the sun,
And walls and roofs to keep the winter out],
There are many citizens of Padua
Who in vile tenements live so full of holes,
That the chill rain, the snow, and the rude blast,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: --La Palferine, generous as Buckingham, could not bear to be caught
empty-handed. One day when he had nothing to give a little Savoyard
chimney-sweeper, he dipped a hand into a barrel of grapes in a
grocer's doorway and filled the child's cap from it. The little one
ate away at his grapes; the grocer began by laughing, and ended by
holding out his hand.
" 'Oh, fie! monsieur,' said La Palferine, 'your left hand ought not to
know what my right hand doth.'
"With his adventurous courage, he never refuses any odds, but there is
wit in his bravado. In the Passage de l'Opera he chanced to meet a man
who had spoken slightingly of him, elbowed him as he passed, and then
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Start in Life by Honore de Balzac: friend, because neither the count nor the countess ever came to
Presles to take down their pretensions. Moreover, the perquisites
granted by Monsieur de Serizy allowed them to live in the midst of
that abundance which is the luxury of country life. Milk, eggs,
poultry, game, fruits, flowers, forage, vegetables, wood, the steward
and his wife used in profusion, buying absolutely nothing but
butcher's-meat, wines, and the colonial supplies required by their
life of luxury. The poultry-maid baked their bread; and of late years
Moreau had paid his butcher with pigs from the farm, after reserving
those he needed for his own use.
On one occasion, the countess, always kind and good to her former
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