| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: himself first with the doctrines necessary to begin with, for a man in
opposition, but an incubus later to the statesman.
Marcas had learned everything that a real statesman should know;
indeed, his amazement was considerable when he had occasion to discern
the utter ignorance of men who have risen to the administration of
public affairs in France. Though in him it was vocation that had led
to study, nature had been generous and bestowed all that cannot be
acquired--keen perceptions, self-command, a nimble wit, rapid
judgment, decisiveness, and, what is the genius of these men,
fertility in resource.
By the time when Marcas thought himself duly equipped, France was torn
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells: to me then to be brown men; but their limbs were oddly swathed
in some thin, dirty, white stuff down even to the fingers and feet:
I have never seen men so wrapped up before, and women so only in the East.
They wore turbans too, and thereunder peered out their elfin
faces at me,--faces with protruding lower-jaws and bright eyes.
They had lank black hair, almost like horsehair, and seemed
as they sat to exceed in stature any race of men I have seen.
The white-haired man, who I knew was a good six feet in height,
sat a head below any one of the three. I found afterwards that really
none were taller than myself; but their bodies were abnormally long,
and the thigh-part of the leg short and curiously twisted.
The Island of Doctor Moreau |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: gentleman, in which men of powerful faculties so generally indulge
when they have allowed excessive dissipation to become a necessity.
Hitherto, he had lived in style without ever being expected to
entertain; and living well, for no one ever looked for a return from
him, or from his friend Corentin. He was cynically witty, and he liked
his profession; he was a philosopher. And besides, a spy, whatever
grade he may hold in the machinery of the police, can no more return
to a profession regarded as honorable or liberal, than a prisoner from
the hulks can. Once branded, once matriculated, spies and convicts,
like deacons, have assumed an indelible character. There are beings on
whom social conditions impose an inevitable fate.
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