| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lemorne Versus Huell by Elizabeth Drew Stoddard: was troublesome, for she was not only out of health, but in a
lawsuit. She wrote to me, for we lived apart, asking me to
accompany her--not because she was fond of me, or wished to give me
pleasure, but because I was useful in various ways. Mother insisted
upon my accepting her invitation, not because she loved her late
husband's sister, but because she thought it wise to cotton to her
in every particular, for Aunt Eliza was rich, and we--two lone
women--were poor.
I gave my music-pupils a longer and earlier vacation than usual,
took a week to arrange my wardrobe--for I made my own dresses--and
then started for New York, with the five dollars which Aunt Eliza
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas: well with that of politics, and that it was proved in
history that many very dangerous men were engaged in
gardening, just as if it had been their profession, whilst
really they occupied themselves with perfectly different
concerns; witness Tarquin the Elder, who grew poppies at
Gabii, and the Great Conde, who watered his carnations at
the dungeon of Vincennes at the very moment when the former
meditated his return to Rome, and the latter his escape from
prison.
The judge summed up with the following dilemma: --
"Either Cornelius van Baerle is a great lover of tulips, or
The Black Tulip |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: deliver the destinies of the nation into the control of the middle-
aged men of the Chamber and the septuagenarians of the peerage; it
robbed them of the right to lay hands on a man of statesmanlike talent
wherever they could find him, no matter how young he was or how
poverty-stricken his condition might be. Napoleon alone was able to
employ young men as he chose, without being restrained by any
consideration. After the overthrow of that mighty will, vigor deserted
power. Now the period when effeminacy succeeds to vigor presents a
contrast that is far more dangerous in France than in other countries.
As a general thing, ministers who were old before they entered office
have proved second or third rate, while those who were taken young
|
