| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: he had, with an instinct of kindness natural to an honest man, the
simplicity to present himself before Clement VII., who had perhaps
congratulated himself on being well rid of him. The Pope had such good
cause to blush for his own conduct that he received Strozzi extremely
ill.
Strozzi thus began, early in life, his apprenticeship in the
misfortunes of an honest man in politics,--a man whose conscience
cannot lend itself to the capriciousness of events; whose actions are
acceptable only to the virtuous; and who is therefore persecuted by
the world,--by the people, for opposing their blind passions; by power
for opposing its usurpations. The life of such great citizens is a
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Fantastic Fables by Ambrose Bierce: The Circular Clew
A DETECTIVE searching for the murderer of a dead man was accosted
by a Clew.
"Follow me," said the Clew, "and there's no knowing what you may
discover."
So the Detective followed the Clew a whole year through a thousand
sinuosities, and at last found himself in the office of the Morgue.
"There!" said the Clew, pointing to the open register.
The Detective eagerly scanned the page, and found an official
statement that the deceased was dead. Thereupon he hastened to
Police Headquarters to report progress. The Clew, meanwhile,
Fantastic Fables |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg by Mark Twain: claimant for the sack himself, and that Burgess had concealed that
fact and then maliciously betrayed it.
Burgess was taxed with this and stoutly denied it. And he said it
was not fair to attach weight to the chatter of a sick old man who
was out of his mind. Still, suspicion was in the air, and there was
much talk.
After a day or two it was reported that Mrs. Richards's delirious
deliveries were getting to be duplicates of her husband's.
Suspicion flamed up into conviction, now, and the town's pride in
the purity of its one undiscredited important citizen began to dim
down and flicker toward extinction.
The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg |
