| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: Bourges in 1807, the son of a Spanish prisoner, may very likely some
day deceive the compiler of some /Universal Biography/. Nothing is
overlooked; neither the names of the professors at the Bourges
College, nor those of his deceased schoolfellows, such as Lousteau,
Bianchon, and other famous natives of the province, who, it is said,
knew the dreamy, melancholy boy, and his precocious bent towards
poetry. An elegy called /Tristesse/ (Melancholy), written at school;
the two poems /Paquita la Sevillane/ and /Le Chene de la Messe/; three
sonnets, a description of the Cathedral and the House of Jacques Coeur
at Bourges, with a tale called /Carola/, published as the work he was
engaged on at the time of his death, constituted the whole of these
The Muse of the Department |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs:
To have followed the thern boat across the gleaming water
would have been to invite instant detection, and so, though I was
loath to permit Thurid to pass even for an instant beyond my sight,
I was forced to wait in the shadows until the other boat had passed
from my sight at the far extremity of the lake.
Then I paddled out upon the brilliant surface in the direction
they had taken.
When, after what seemed an eternity, I reached the shadows at
The Warlord of Mars |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Common Sense by Thomas Paine: HIM CAPTAINS OVER THOUSANDS AND CAPTAINS OVER FIFTIES, AND WILL SET THEM
TO EAR HIS GROUND AND REAP HIS HARVEST, AND TO MAKE HIS INSTRUMENTS OF WAR,
AND INSTRUMENTS OF HIS CHARIOTS; AND HE WILL TAKE YOUR DAUGHTERS
TO BE CONFECTIONARIES, AND TO BE COOKS AND TO BE BAKERS
(this describes the expense and luxury as well as the oppression
of kings) AND HE WILL TAKE YOUR FIELDS AND YOUR OLIVE YARDS,
EVEN THE BEST OF THEM, AND GIVE THEM TO HIS SERVANTS;
AND HE WILL TAKE THE TENTH OF YOUR SEED, AND OF YOUR VINEYARDS,
AND GIVE THEM TO HIS OFFICERS AND TO HIS SERVANTS
(by which we see that bribery, corruption, and favouritism
are the standing vices of kings) AND HE WILL TAKE THE TENTH
Common Sense |
