| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Kenilworth by Walter Scott: asks him of the lady's beauty, and he talks of her fine clothes!"
"I tell thee," said the mercer, somewhat disconcerted, "I had
little time to look at her; for just as I was about to give her
the good time of day, and for that purpose had puckered my
features with a smile--"
"Like those of a jackanape simpering at a chestnut," said Michael
Lambourne.
"Up started of a sudden," continued Goldthred, without heeding
the interruption, "Tony Foster himself, with a cudgel in his
hand--"
"And broke thy head across, I hope, for thine impertinence," said
Kenilworth |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lucile by Owen Meredith: Sought to sting.
Each unconscious, indeed, of the eye
Fix'd upon them, Lucile and my lord saunter'd by,
In converse which seem'd to be earnest. A smile
Now and then seem'd to show where their thoughts touch'd. Meanwhile
The muse of this story, convinced that they need her,
To the Duke and Matilda returns, gentle Reader.
XX.
The Duke with that sort of aggressive false praise
Which is meant a resentful remonstrance to raise
From a listener (as sometimes a judge, just before
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: incapable of so doing in his own interests, he merely pondered useful
thoughts and dreamed of triumphs won for his country by noble means.
His ideas were both generous and ambitious; few officials have not
conceived the like; but among officials as among artists there are
more miscarriages than births; which is tantamount to Buffon's saying
that "Genius is patience."
Placed in a position where he could study French administration and
observe its mechanism, Rabourdin worked in the circle where his
thought revolved, which, we may remark parenthetically, is the secret
of much human accomplishment; and his labor culminated finally in the
invention of a new system for the Civil Service of government. Knowing
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