| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: of supposition of person; she can do no more than denounce the fact."
"From which you conclude?" said Rastignac, with that curtness of
speech which to a prolix speaker is a warning to be concise.
"From which I conclude, judicially speaking, that the Romilly peasant-
woman, so far as she is concerned, will have her trouble for her
pains; but, speaking politically, the thing takes quite another
aspect."
"Let us see the political side," said the minister; "up to this point,
I see nothing."
"In the first place," replied the attorney-general, "you will admit
that it is always possible to bring a bad case?"
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: land, <184>every avenue from which would bring me in sight of
pursuers. There was the Chesapeake bay to the right, and "Pot-
pie" river to the left, and St. Michael's and its neighborhood
occupying the only space through which there was any retreat.
I found Sandy an old advisor. He was not only a religious man,
but he professed to believe in a system for which I have no name.
He was a genuine African, and had inherited some of the so-called
magical powers, said to be possessed by African and eastern
nations. He told me that he could help me; that, in those very
woods, there was an herb, which in the morning might be found,
possessing all the powers required for my protection (I put his
My Bondage and My Freedom |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Of my fellow-men, who knows?
I was once, to say it in brief,
A highwayman, a robber-chief,
In the open light of day.
So much I am free to confess;
But all men, more or less,
Are robbers in their way.
From my cavern in the crags,
From my lair of leaves and flags,
I could see, like ants, below,
The camels with their load
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