| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac: him to terms. The young man in the balcony of a theatre who
displays a gorgeous waistcoat for the benefit of the fair owners
of opera glasses, has very probably no socks in his wardrobe, for
the hosier is another of the genus of weevils that nibble at the
purse. This was Rastignac's condition. His purse was always empty
for Mme. Vauquer, always full at the demand of vanity; there was
a periodical ebb and flow in his fortunes, which was seldom
favorable to the payment of just debts. If he was to leave that
unsavory and mean abode, where from time to time his pretensions
met with humiliation, the first step was to pay his hostess for a
month's board and lodging, and the second to purchase furniture
Father Goriot |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Smalcald Articles by Dr. Martin Luther: III. Of Repentance.
This office [of the Law] the New Testament retains and urges,
as St. Paul, Rom. 1, 18 does, saying: The wrath of God is
revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men. Again, 3, 19: All the world is guilty
before God. No man is righteous before Him. And Christ says,
John 16, 8: The Holy Ghost will reprove the world of sin.
This, then, is the thunderbolt of God by which He strikes in a
heap [hurls to the ground] both manifest sinners and false
saints [hypocrites], and suffers no one to be in the right
[declares no one righteous], but drives them all together to
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs: my duty. Quickly and as noiselessly as possible I ran
down the arena in pursuit of the grim creature. As I
ran I drew one of my pitifully futile weapons. Ah! Could
I but have had my lost express-gun in my hands at that
moment! A single well-placed shot would have crumbled
even this great monster. The best I could hope to ac-
complish was to divert the thing from the girl to myself
and then to place as many bullets as possible in it before
it reached and mauled me into insensibility and death.
There is a certain unwritten law of the arena that
vouchsafes freedom and immunity to the victor, be he
Pellucidar |
