| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: in itself, but which in its ordinary course tended to the swift
destruction both of soul and body.
But the case was otherwise here. My mother was convicted
of felony for a certain petty theft scarce worth naming, viz.
having an opportunity of borrowing three pieces of fine holland
of a certain draper in Cheapside. The circumstances are too
long to repeat, and I have heard them related so many ways,
that I can scarce be certain which is the right account.
However it was, this they all agree in, that my mother pleaded
her belly, and being found quick with child, she was respited
for about seven months; in which time having brought me into
Moll Flanders |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: your death. If you attain this certainty, you have touched the value
of your intellectual capital, on which the cost of insurance is but a
trifle,--a mere trifle, a bagatelle."
"That's a fine idea!"
"Ah! is it not, Monsieur?" cried Gaudissart. "I call this enterprise
the exchequer of beneficence; a mutual insurance against poverty; or,
if you like it better, the discounting, the cashing, of talent. For
talent, Monsieur, is a bill of exchange which Nature gives to the man
of genius, and which often has a long time to run before it falls
due."
"That is usury!" cried Margaritis.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Sportsman by Xenophon: in the presence of him whom he dearly loves,[24] he rises to a height
above himself, being incapable of aught base or foul in word or deed
in sight of him?[25] But fondly dreaming that the eye of virtue is
closed to them, they are guilty of many a base thing and foul before
her very face, who is hidden from their eyes. Yet she is present
everywhere, being dowered with immortality; and those who are perfect
in goodness[26] she honours, but the wicked she thrusts aside from
honour. If only men could know that she regards them, how eagerly
would they rush to the embrace of toilful training and
tribulation,[27] by which alone she is hardly taken; and so should
they gain the mastery over her, and she should be laid captive at
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