| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: lasso round the neck of the other, tied him to his saddle and dragged
him over the plain, after having taken from him his sword from its
rich hilt and removed from his girdle a whole bag of ducats.
Kobita, a good Cossack, though still very young, attacked one of the
bravest men in the Polish army, and they fought long together. They
grappled, and the Cossack mastering his foe, and throwing him down,
stabbed him in the breast with his sharp Turkish knife. But he did not
look out for himself, and a bullet struck him on the temple. The man
who struck him down was the most distinguished of the nobles, the
handsomest scion of an ancient and princely race. Like a stately
poplar, he bestrode his dun-coloured steed, and many heroic deeds did
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: our absentees at five shillings a pound: Of using neither
cloaths, nor houshold furniture, except what is of our own growth
and manufacture: Of utterly rejecting the materials and
instruments that promote foreign luxury: Of curing the
expensiveness of pride, vanity, idleness, and gaming in our
women: Of introducing a vein of parsimony, prudence and
temperance: Of learning to love our country, wherein we differ
even from Laplanders, and the inhabitants of Topinamboo: Of
quitting our animosities and factions, nor acting any longer like
the Jews, who were murdering one another at the very moment their
city was taken: Of being a little cautious not to sell our
A Modest Proposal |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: flings it carelessly aside! Would it not have been very inconsistent,
moreover, if I, who wished to improve a district, had shrunk back at
the thought of improving one man in it?
"A road was our first and most pressing need in bringing about a
better state of things. If we could obtain permission from the
Municipal Council to make a hard road, so as to put us in
communication with the highway to Grenoble, the deputy-mayor would be
the first gainer by it; for instead of dragging his timber over rough
tracks at a great expense, a good road through the canton would enable
him to transport it more easily, and to engage in a traffic on a large
scale, in all kinds of wood, that would bring in money--not a
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