| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: superior to that of a man of whom it is simply stated that "he is
witty." Genius always presupposes moral insight. This insight may
be applied to a special subject; but he who can see a flower must
be able to see the sun. The man who on hearing a diplomate he has
saved ask, "How is the Emperor?" could say, "The courtier is
alive; the man will follow!"--that man is not merely a surgeon or
a physician, he is prodigiously witty also. Hence a patient and
diligent student of human nature will admit Desplein's exorbitant
pretensions, and believe--as he himself believed--that he might
have been no less great as a minister than he was as a surgeon.
Among the riddles which Desplein's life presents to many of his
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: with the discovery when they have told us that this mighty flood
proceeds from the melting of snow on the mountains of Aethiopia,
without reflecting that this opinion is contrary to the received
notion of all the ancients, who believed that the heat was so
excessive between the tropics that no inhabitant could live there.
So much snow and so great heat are never met with in the same
region; and indeed I never saw snow in Abyssinia, except on Mount
Semen in the kingdom of Tigre, very remote from the Nile, and on
Namera, which is indeed not far distant, but where there never falls
snow sufficient to wet the foot of the mountain when it is melted.
To the immense labours and fatigues of the Portuguese mankind is
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Ebb-Tide by Stevenson & Osbourne: over him? No accountin' for tystes.'
'I'm not denying it,' said Davis, 'It's something here, inside of
me. It's foolishness; I dare say it's dam foolishness. I don't
argue, I just draw the line. Isn't there no other way?'
'Look for yourself,' said Huish. 'I ain't wedded to this, if you
think I am; I ain't ambitious; I don't make a point of playin'
the lead; I offer to, that's all, and if you can't show me
better, by Gawd, I'm goin' to!'
'Then the risk!' cried Davis.
'If you ast me straight, I should say it was a case of seven to
one and no takers,' said Huish. 'But that's my look-out, ducky,
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