| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: business, grasping yet open handed, envious yet self-complacent,
profound politicians by fits and starts, analyzing everything,
guessing everything--not one of these in question as yet had contrived
to make his way in the world which they chose for their scene of
operations. Only one of the four, indeed, had succeeded in coming as
far as the foot of the ladder.
To have money is nothing; the self-made man only finds out all that he
lacks after six months of flatteries. Andoche Finot, the self-made man
in question, stiff, taciturn, cold, and dull-witted, possessed the
sort of spirit which will not shrink from groveling before any
creature that may be of use to him, and the cunning to be insolent
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: assignats were reaching their lowest depreciation and gold was worth
far more than silver. The two young surgeons, about twenty years of
age at the most, yielded themselves up to the poesy of their situation
with all the enthusiasm of youth. Between Strasburg and Bonn they had
visited the Electorate and the banks of the Rhine as artists,
philosophers, and observers. When a man's destiny is scientific he is,
at their age, a being who is truly many-sided. Even in making love or
in travelling, an assistant-surgeon should be gathering up the
rudiments of his fortune or his coming fame.
The two young had therefore given themselves wholly to that deep
admiration which must affect all educated men on seeing the banks of
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson: young man.
It chanced that his way lay up the Rue Drouot and thence up the Rue
des Martyrs; and chance, in this case, served him better than all
the forethought in the world. For on the outer boulevard he saw
two men in earnest colloquy upon a seat. One was dark, young, and
handsome, secularly dressed, but with an indelible clerical stamp;
the other answered in every particular to the description given him
by the clerk. Francis felt his heart beat high in his bosom; he
knew he was now about to hear the voice of his father; and making a
wide circuit, he noiselessly took his place behind the couple in
question, who were too much interested in their talk to observe
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