| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson: international relations, to assume the swaggering port and the
vague, threatful language of a bully. The idea of extending
Grunewald may appear absurd, but the little state is advantageously
placed, its neighbours are all defenceless; and if at any moment the
jealousies of the greater courts should neutralise each other, an
active policy might double the principality both in population and
extent. Certainly at least the scheme is entertained in the court
of Mittwalden; nor do I myself regard it as entirely desperate. The
margravate of Brandenburg has grown from as small beginnings to a
formidable power; and though it is late in the day to try
adventurous policies, and the age of war seems ended, Fortune, we
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: of Athanase; and, like many other women who have longed to help an
adored man beyond the limit of human powers, she felt herself capable
of making her body a stepping-stone on which he could rise to attain
his throne.
It is now necessary to enter the house of this old maid toward whom so
many interests are converging, where the actors in this scene, with
the exception of Suzanne, were all to meet this very evening. As for
Suzanne, that handsome individual bold enough to burn her ships like
Alexander at her start in life, and to begin the battle by a
falsehood, she disappears from the stage, having introduced upon it a
violent element of interest. Her utmost wishes were gratified. She
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 1 by Alexis de Toqueville: that if these are its only advantages, the division of the
legislative power is still a principle of the greatest necessity.
Pennsylvania was the only one of the United States which at first
attempted to establish a single House of Assembly, and Franklin
himself was so far carried away by the necessary consequences of
the principle of the sovereignty of the people as to have
concurred in the measure; but the Pennsylvanians were soon
obliged to change the law, and to create two Houses. Thus the
principle of the division of the legislative power was finally
established, and its necessity may henceforward be regarded as a
demonstrated truth. This theory, which was nearly unknown to the
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