| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: accomplish.
Oh! my dear de Marsay, this woman is indispensable to my life; she
is my sun, my atmosphere. Take her under your shield and buckler,
keep her faithful to me, even if she wills it not. Yes, I could be
satisfied with a half-happiness. Be her guardian, her chaperon,
for I could have no distrust of you. Prove to her that in
betraying me she would do a low and vulgar thing, and be no better
than the common run of women; tell her that faithfulness will
prove her lofty spirit.
She probably has fortune enough to continue her life of luxury and
ease. But if she lacks a pleasure, if she has caprices which she
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Fantastic Fables by Ambrose Bierce: his knees behind a mesquite bush, praying with extreme fervour.
"Oh, you can't stop it that way," said the Reporter.
"My fellow-traveller to the bar of God," replied the Sole Survivor,
looking up over his shoulder, "your understanding is in darkness.
I am not stopping this great blessing; under Providence, I am
bringing it."
"That is a pretty good joke," said the Reporter, laughing as well
as he could in the strangling rain - "a mule driver's prayer
answered!"
"Child of levity and scoffing," replied the other; "you err again,
misled by these humble habiliments. I am the Rev. Ezekiel Thrifft,
Fantastic Fables |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: if you put the two arguments together--I mean this and the former one, in
which we admitted that everything living is born of the dead. For if the
soul exists before birth, and in coming to life and being born can be born
only from death and dying, must she not after death continue to exist,
since she has to be born again?--Surely the proof which you desire has been
already furnished. Still I suspect that you and Simmias would be glad to
probe the argument further. Like children, you are haunted with a fear
that when the soul leaves the body, the wind may really blow her away and
scatter her; especially if a man should happen to die in a great storm and
not when the sky is calm.
Cebes answered with a smile: Then, Socrates, you must argue us out of our
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