| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: soon as the judge spoke of the announcement, Nathan began to smile.
"Give up that monument of recklessness and folly?" cried he. "That
autograph is one of those weapons which an athlete in the circus
cannot afford to lay down. That note proves that Lousteau has no
heart, no taste, no dignity; that he knows nothing of the world nor of
public morality; that he insults himself when he can find no one else
to insult.--None but the son of a provincial citizen imported from
Sancerre to become a poet, but who is only the /bravo/ of some
contemptible magazine, could ever have sent out such a circular
letter, as you must allow, monsieur. This is a document indispensable
to the archives of the age.--To-day Lousteau flatters me, to-morrow he
The Muse of the Department |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: By her I claim the kingdom; she was heir
To Roger Earl of March, who was the son
Of Edmund Mortimer, who married Philippe,
Sole daughter unto Lionel Duke of Clarence.
So, if the issue of the elder son
Succeed before the younger, I am king.
WARWICK.
What plain proceeding is more plain than this?
Henry doth claim the crown from John of Gaunt,
The fourth son; York claims it from the third.
Till Lionel's issue fails, his should not reign;
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: and beating of wheat: for as all rich men were Robin's harvest,
the bishops and archbishops must have been the finest and fattest
ears among them, from which Robin merely proposes to thresh
the grain when he directs them to be bound and beaten:
and as Pharaoh's fat kine were typical of fat ears of wheat,
so may fat ears of wheat, mutatis mutandis, be typical of fat kine.
"The articles of Hospitality are two:
"I. Postmen, carriers and market-folk, peasants and mechanics,
farmers and millers, shall pass through our forest dominions
without let or molestation.
"II. All other travellers through the forest shall be graciously invited
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