| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: true fount of honor, wealth, or pleasure; and in the eyes of young
girls, an epaulette--the hieroglyphic of a future--signified happiness
and liberty.
One feature, and a characteristic one, of this unique period in our
history was an unbridled mania for everything glittering. Never were
fireworks so much in vogue, never were diamonds so highly prized. The
men, as greedy as the women of these translucent pebbles, displayed
them no less lavishly. Possibly the necessity for carrying plunder in
the most portable form made gems the fashion in the army. A man was
not ridiculous then, as he would be now, if his shirt-frill or his
fingers blazed with large diamonds. Murat, an Oriental by nature, set
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Inaugural Address by John F. Kennedy: We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient
beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.
But neither can two great and powerful groups of nations take comfort from
our present course. . .both sides overburdened by the cost of modern weapons,
both rightly alarmed by the steady spread of the deadly atom, yet both racing
to alter that uncertain balance of terror that stays the hand of Mankind's
final war.
So let us begin anew. . .remembering on both sides that civility
is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof.
Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.
Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: seemed to him that in the Magnificat the organ made response
which was borne to him on the vibrating air. The nun's spirit
found wings in music and fled towards him, throbbing with the
rhythmical pulse of the sounds. Then, in all its might, the
music burst forth and filled the church with warmth. The Song of
Joy set apart in the sublime liturgy of Latin Christianity to
express the exaltation of the soul in the presence of the glory
of the ever-living God, became the utterance of a heart almost
terrified by its gladness in the presence of the glory of a
mortal love; a love that yet lived, a love that had risen to
trouble her even beyond the grave in which the nun is laid, that
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