| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: people as he chose, and the Faubourg Saint-Germain could make no
objection; for, fortunately, a young bachelor is allowed to make his
own pleasure his sole rule of life, he is at liberty to betake himself
wherever amusement is to be found, and to shun the gloomy places where
cares flourish and multiply. Finally, he had been vaccinated (you know
what I mean, Blondet).
"And yet, in spite of all these virtues," continued Bixiou, "he might
very well have been a very unhappy young man. Eh! eh! that word
happiness, unhappily, seems to us to mean something absolute, a
delusion which sets so many wiseacres inquiring what happiness is. A
very clever woman said that 'Happiness was where you chose to put
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx: "saved" society against the "enemies of society." They gave out the
slogans of the old social order--"Property, Family, Religion, Order"--as
the pass-words for their army, and cried out to the
counter-revolutionary crusaders: "In this sign thou wilt conquer!" From
that moment on, so soon as any of the numerous parties, which had
marshaled themselves under this sign against the June insurgents, tries,
in turn, to take the revolutionary field in the interest of its own
class, it goes down in its turn before the cry: "Property, Family,
Religion, Order." Thus it happens that "society is saved" as often as
the circle of its ruling class is narrowed, as often as a more exclusive
interest asserts itself over the general. Every demand for the most
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Legend of Montrose by Walter Scott: great hall of the castle. Among them were the persons of the
greatest consequence in the Highlands, some of them attracted by
zeal for the royal cause, and many by aversion to that severe and
general domination which the Marquis of Argyle, since his rising
to such influence in the state, had exercised over his Highland
neighbours. That statesman, indeed, though possessed of
considerable abilities, and great power, had failings, which
rendered him unpopular among the Highland chiefs. The devotion
which he professed was of a morose and fanatical character; his
ambition appeared to be insatiable, and inferior chiefs
complained of his want of bounty and liberality. Add to this,
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