| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: season continues to make its wonted revolutions.
"Let us cease to consider what perhaps may never happen, and what,
when it shall happen, will laugh at human speculation. We will not
endeavour to modify the motions of the elements or to fix the
destiny of kingdoms. It is our business to consider what beings
like us may perform, each labouring for his own happiness by
promoting within his circle, however narrow, the happiness of
others.
"Marriage is evidently the dictate of Nature; men and women were
made to be the companions of each other, and therefore I cannot be
persuaded but that marriage is one of the means of happiness."
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: unattainable pearl he could only have either passions rendered acute
by some Parisian vanity, or set determinations with himself to bring
such and such a woman to such and such a point of corruption, or else
adventures which stimulated his curiosity.
The report of Laurent, his /valet de chambre/ had just given an
enormous value to the girl with the golden eyes. It was a question of
doing battle with some secret enemy who seemed as dangerous as he was
cunning; and to carry off the victory, all the forces which Henri
could dispose of would be useful. He was about to play in that eternal
old comedy which will be always fresh, and the characters in which are
an old man, a young girl, and a lover: Don Hijos, Paquita, De Marsay.
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Stories From the Old Attic by Robert Harris: the educated and respectable people--the chief and his council--spoke
against it, and the example of their sophistication and wealth (the
chief's woodpile was ninety feet high) was very strong. Many others,
from the gossips to the wise man, said that the old way was right,
and that the tribe had always behaved that way. There were few real
individuals in the tribe, so that even though scores would have been
glad to try the cure, they were afraid to stand against the rest and
did what everyone else was doing, which was nothing.
The witch doctor had a stronger argument against the new regimen. He
pointed out that the cure was harder to take than the cures he
dispensed. The Eastern doctor's cure was painful, and though many of
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