| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Hellenica by Xenophon: As soon as the Athenian garrison troops were met together in the city
of Corinth, the Corinthian authorities caused proclamation to be made
inviting all Athenians who felt themselves wronged to enter their
names and cases upon a list, and they would recover their dues. While
things were in this state, Chares arrived at Cenchreae with a fleet.
Learning what had been done, he told them that he had heard there were
designs against the state of Corinth, and had come to render
assistance. The authorities, while thanking him politely for his zeal,
were not any the more ready to admit the vessels into the harbour, but
bade him sail away; and after rendering justice to the infantry
troops, they sent them away likewise. Thus the Athenians were quit of
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: some starving artist, some great man whose influence is on the wane,
and, for lack of money, is like to lose the fruit of all his labors--
the power of their pleading has made me shudder. Sublime actors such
as these play for me, for an audience of one, and they cannot deceive
me. I can look into their inmost thoughts, and read them as God reads
them. Nothing is hidden from me. Nothing is refused to the holder of
the purse-strings to loose and to bind. I am rich enough to buy the
consciences of those who control the action of ministers, from their
office boys to their mistresses. Is not that power?--I can possess the
fairest women, receive their softest caresses; is not that Pleasure?
And is not your whole social economy summed up in terms of Power and
Gobseck |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Moon-Face and Other Stories by Jack London: listen to the ridiculous sound of it--Claverhouse! Should a man live with such
a name? I ask of you. "No," you say. And "No" said I.
But I bethought me of his mortgage. What of his crops and barn destroyed, I
knew he would be unable to meet it. So I got a shrewd, close-mouthed,
tight-fisted money-lender to get the mortgage transferred to him. I did not
appear but through this agent I forced the foreclosure, and but few days (no
more, believe me, than the law allowed) were given John Claverhouse to remove
his goods and chattels from the premises. Then I strolled down to see how he
took it, for he had lived there upward of twenty years. But he met me with his
saucer-eyes twinkling, and the light glowing and spreading in his face till it
was as a full-risen moon.
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