| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 1 by Alexis de Toqueville: Europe as a profound, impartial, and entertaining exposition of
the principles of popular, representative self-government.
Napoleon, "The mighty somnambulist of a vanished dream," had
abolished feudalism and absolutism, made monarchs and dynasties
obsolete, and substituted for the divine right of kings the
sovereignty of the people.
Although by birth and sympathies an aristocrat, M. de
Tocqueville saw that the reign of tradition and privilege at last
was ended. He perceived that civilization, after many bloody
centuries, had entered a new epoch. He beheld, and deplored, the
excesses that had attended the genesis of the democratic spirit
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Royalty Restored/London Under Charles II by J. Fitzgerald Molloy: the ladies of the bedchamber to her majesty, to which he,
heedless of the insult this would fix upon his wife, readily
consented.
In order to qualify Barbara Palmer for such a position, it was
necessary she should be raised to the peerage. This could only
be accomplished by ennobling her husband, unless public decency
were wholly ignored, and she was created a peeress in her own
right, whilst he remained a commoner. After some faint show of
hesitation, Roger Palmer accepted the honours thrust upon him by
reason of his wife's infamy. On the 11th of December, 1661, he
was created Earl of Castlemaine, and Baron Limerick in the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner: him, and his blue eyes gazing out far across the flat, like one who sits on
the seashore watching that which is fading, fading from him.
Against his breast was a letter found in the desk addressed to himself, but
never posted. It held only four words: "You must marry Em." He wore it
in a black bag round his neck. It was the only letter she had ever written
to him.
"You see if the sheep don't have the scab this year!" said Tant Sannie as
she waddled after Em. "It's with all these new inventions that the wrath
of God must fall on us. What were the children of Israel punished for, if
it wasn't for making a golden calf? I may have my sins, but I do remember
the tenth commandment: 'Honour thy father and mother that it may be well
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