| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: the Rubicon included.
I know how I came to be literary, and I will tell the steps
that lead up to it and brought it about.
The crossing of the Rubicon was not the first one, it was
hardly even a recent one; I should have to go back ages before
Caesar's day to find the first one. To save space I will go back
only a couple of generations and start with an incident of my
boyhood. When I was twelve and a half years old, my father died.
It was in the spring. The summer came, and brought with it an
epidemic of measles. For a time a child died almost every day.
The village was paralyzed with fright, distress, despair.
What is Man? |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: writer. (2) The resolution of wealth into its simplest implements going on
to infinity is a subtle and refined thought. (3) That wealth is relative
to circumstances is a sound conception. (4) That the arts and sciences
which receive payment are likewise to be comprehended under the notion of
wealth, also touches a question of modern political economy. (5) The
distinction of post hoc and propter hoc, often lost sight of in modern as
well as in ancient times. These metaphysical conceptions and distinctions
show considerable power of thought in the writer, whatever we may think of
his merits as an imitator of Plato.
ERYXIAS
by
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: hours and penury, and almost always of a bad disposition. The best
description of him may be given in two familiar expressions--he was
sharp and snappish. His cracked voice suited his sour face, meagre
look, and magpie eyes of no particular color. A magpie eye, according
to Napoleon, is a sure sign of dishonesty. "Look at So-and-so," he
said to Las Cases at Saint Helena, alluding to a confidential servant
whom he had been obliged to dismiss for malversation. "I do not know
how I could have been deceived in him for so long; he has a magpie
eye." Tall Cointet, surveying the weedy little lawyer, noted his face
pitted with smallpox, the thin hair, and the forehead, bald already,
receding towards a bald cranium; saw, too, the confession of weakness
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