| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: statesman naturally keeps a yawn ready for the first sentence designed
to show him how the public service could be better managed. At such
periods not a dinner took place among bold schemers or financial and
political lobbyists where the opinions of the Bourse and the Bank, the
secrets of diplomacy, and the policy necessitated by the state of
affairs in Europe were not canvassed and discussed. The minister has
his own private councillors in des Lupeaulx and his secretary, who
collected and pondered all opinions and discussions for the purpose of
analyzing and controlling the various interests proclaimed and
supported by so many clever men. In fact, his misfortune was that of
most other ministers who have passed the prime of life; he trimmed and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: To do them nicely to a turn,
I can't afford an honest heat.
This tariff makes even devils cheat!
I'm ruined, and my humble trade
All rascals may at will invade:
Beneath my nose the public press
Outdoes me in sulphureousness;
The bar ingeniously applies
To my undoing my own lies;
My medicines the doctors use
(Albeit vainly) to refuse
The Devil's Dictionary |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: turned on himself now,--mocking, cruel, relentless.
"Not hungry for meat," the furnace-tender said at last.
"What then? Whiskey?" jeered Kirby, with a coarse laugh.
Wolfe was silent a moment, thinking.
"I dunno," he said, with a bewildered look. "It mebbe. Summat
to make her live, I think,--like you. Whiskey ull do it, in a
way.
The young man laughed again. Mitchell flashed a look of disgust
somewhere,--not at Wolfe.
"May," he broke out impatiently, "are you blind? Look at that
woman's face! It asks questions of God, and says, 'I have a
Life in the Iron-Mills |
