| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: professed by Russia, namely: to whichever head the crown goes, he is
the true, the legitimate sovereign. Mirabeau had reason to say: "There
has been but one mesalliance in my family,--that of the Medici"; for
in spite of the paid efforts of genealogists, it is certain that the
Medici, before Everardo de' Medici, /gonfaloniero/ of Florence in
1314, were simple Florentine merchants who became very rich. The first
personage in this family who occupies an important place in the
history of the famous Tuscan republic is Silvestro de' Medici,
/gonfaloniero/ in 1378. This Silvestro had two sons, Cosmo and Lorenzo
de' Medici.
From Cosmo are descended Lorenzo the Magnificent, the Duc de Nemours,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: very dear to minds of taste and imagination, that finds a melancholy
delight in contemplating these unfinished productions of genius,
these sketches of what, if they had been filled up in a manner
adequate to the writer's conception, would perhaps have given a
new impulse to the manners of a world.
The purpose and structure of the following work, had long
formed a favourite subject of meditation with its author, and she
judged them capable of producing an important effect. The composition
had been in progress for a period of twelve months. She was anxious
to do justice to her conception, and recommenced and revised the
manuscript several different times. So much of it as is here given
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy: slime-pits of Siddim; but there was left to him a digni-
fied calm he had never before known, and that indiffer-
ence to fate which, though it often makes a villain of
a man, is the basis of his sublimity when it does not.
And thus the abasement had been exaltation, and the
loss gain.
In the morning a regiment of cavalry had left the
town, and a sergeant and his party had been beating up
for recruits through the four streets. As the end of the
day drew on, and he found himself not hired, Gabriel
almost wished that he had joined them, and gone off to
Far From the Madding Crowd |
