| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: administration (which can't allow itself to appear in the wrong)
will quietly retire him from active duty by making him inspector."
That's how the reward of merit devolves on incapacity. All France
knew of the disaster which happened in the heart of Paris to the
first suspension bridge built by an engineer, a member of the
Academy of Sciences; a melancholy collapse caused by blunders such
as none of the ancient engineers--the man who cut the canal at
Briare in Henri IV.'s time, or the monk who built the Pont Royal--
would have made; but our administration consoled its engineer for
his blunder by making him a member of the Council-general.
Are the technical schools vast manufactories of incapables? That
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: when, in the flush of youth and of their ardor for art, they approach
a man of genius or a masterpiece. In all human sentiments there are,
as it were, primeval flowers bred of noble enthusiasms, which droop
and fade from year to year, till joy is but a memory and glory a lie.
Amid such fleeting emotions nothing so resembles love as the young
passion of an artist who tastes the first delicious anguish of his
destined fame and woe,--a passion daring yet timid, full of vague
confidence and sure discouragement. Is there a man, slender in
fortune, rich in his spring-time of genius, whose heart has not beaten
loudly as he approached a master of his art? If there be, that man
will forever lack some heart-string, some touch, I know not what, of
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain: Tom was tugging at a button-hole and looking
sheepish. He blushed, now, and his eyes fell. Mr.
Walters' heart sank within him. He said to himself,
it is not possible that the boy can answer the simplest
question -- why DID the Judge ask him? Yet he felt
obliged to speak up and say:
"Answer the gentleman, Thomas -- don't be afraid."
Tom still hung fire.
"Now I know you'll tell me," said the lady. "The
names of the first two disciples were --"
"DAVID AND GOLIAH!"
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer |
