| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: "That is too old a trick in warfare, my dear Montcornet! However, what
do I care? Like the Emperor, when I have made a conquest, I keep it."
"Martial, your fatuity cries out for a lesson. What! you, a civilian,
and so lucky as to be the husband-designate of Madame de Vaudremont, a
widow of two-and-twenty, burdened with four thousand napoleons a year
--a woman who slips such a diamond as this on your finger," he added,
taking the lawyer's left hand, which the young man complacently
allowed; "and, to crown all, you affect the Lovelace, just as if you
were a colonel and obliged to keep up the reputation of the military
in home quarters! Fie, fie! Only think of all you may lose."
"At any rate, I shall not lose my liberty," replied Martial, with a
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: But Slander's tongue -- itself all coated -- uttered
Her bilious mind and scandalously muttered
That in the case of patients having money
The pills were sugar and the pukes were honey.
_Biography of Bishop Potter_
HONORABLE, adj. Afflicted with an impediment in one's reach. In
legislative bodies it is customary to mention all members as
honorable; as, "the honorable gentleman is a scurvy cur."
HOPE, n. Desire and expectation rolled into one.
Delicious Hope! when naught to man it left --
Of fortune destitute, of friends bereft;
The Devil's Dictionary |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso: He followed him that did him rule and guie;
Strait was the way at first, withouten light,
But further in, did further amplify;
So that upright walked at ease the men
Ere they had passed half that secret den,
XXXIV
A privy door Ismen unlocked at last,
And up they clomb a little-used stair,
Thereat the day a feeble beam in cast,
Dim was the light, and nothing clear the air;
Out of the hollow cave at length they passed
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