| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: it out. Everything was done with a view to sending up the shares two
hundred francs during the first six months by the payment of a sham
dividend. Twenty per cent, on ten millions! Du Tillet's interest in
the concern amounted to five hundred thousand francs. In the
stock-exchange slang of the day, this share of the spoils was a 'sop
in the pan.' Nucingen, with his millions made by the aid of a
lithographer's stone and a handful of pink paper, proposed to himself
to operate certain nice little shares carefully hoarded in his private
office till the time came for putting them on the market. The
shareholders' money floated the concern, and paid for splendid
business premises, so they began operations. And Nucingen held in
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Aesop's Fables by Aesop: awakened from its slumber, stood up and barked at the Ox, and
whenever it came near attempted to bite it. At last the Ox had to
give up the hope of getting at the straw, and went away muttering:
"Ah, people often grudge others what they
cannot enjoy themselves."
The Man and the Wooden God
In the old days men used to worship stocks and stones and
idols, and prayed to them to give them luck. It happened that a
Man had often prayed to a wooden idol he had received from his
father, but his luck never seemed to change. He prayed and he
prayed, but still he remained as unlucky as ever. One day in the
 Aesop's Fables |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry: are wisest. They are the magi.
End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of THE GIFT OF THE MAGI.
 The Gift of the Magi |