| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac: the rocks but lost further down, he resolved to guard himself from
their visits by placing a barrier at the entrance of his hermitage.
In spite of his diligence, and the strength which the fear of being
devoured asleep gave him, he was unable to cut the palm in pieces,
though he succeeded in cutting it down. At eventide the king of the
desert fell; the sound of its fall resounded far and wide, like a sigh
in the solitude; the soldier shuddered as though he had heard some
voice predicting woe.
But like an heir who does not long bewail a deceased relative, he tore
off from this beautiful tree the tall broad green leaves which are its
poetic adornment, and used them to mend the mat on which he was to
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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: the pettiest intrigues and the performance of court comedies by the
world's saviours, who, in their "laisser aller," recall the Day of
Judgment not so much as the days of the Fronde; the official collective
genius of France brought to shame by the artful stupidity of a single
individual; the collective will of the nation, as often as it speaks
through the general suffrage, seeking its true expression in the
prescriptive enemies of the public interests until it finally finds it
in the arbitrary will of a filibuster. If ever a slice from history is
drawn black upon black, it is this. Men and events appear as reversed
"Schlemihls," [#1 The hero In Chamisso's "Peter Schiemihi," who loses
his own shadow.] as shadows, the bodies of which have been lost. The
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: Angouleme, it was apparent to the meanest understanding that M. and
Mme. Postel founded their hopes of future ease upon the old cure's
will.
"Have you breakfasted? Will you take something? We did not in the
least expect you! This is a pleasant surprise!" Out came questions
innumerable in a breath.
Mme. Postel might have been born to be the wife of an apothecary in
L'Houmeau. She was a common-looking woman, about the same height as
little Postel himself, such good looks as she possessed being entirely
due to youth and health. Her florid auburn hair grew very low upon her
forehead. Her demeanor and language were in keeping with homely
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