| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: went so far as to think of marrying a sub-lieutenant, a man who smoked
tobacco, whom she proposed to render, by dint of care and kindness,
one of the best men in the world, although he was hampered with debts.
But it was only in the silence of night watches that these fantastic
marriages, in which she played the sublime role of guardian angel,
took place. The next day, though Josette found her mistress' bed in a
tossed and tumbled condition, Mademoiselle Cormon had recovered her
dignity, and could only think of a man of forty, a land-owner, well
preserved, and a quasi-young man.
The Abbe de Sponde was incapable of giving his niece the slightest aid
in her matrimonial manoeuvres. The worthy soul, now seventy years of
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: for he had no doubt that once they had Tara safely in the
adjoining chamber the two would set upon him. If he could not
save her, he could at least die for her.
And then, suddenly, Gahan's eyes fastened with amazement upon the
figure of the warrior behind the grinning fellow who held Tara
and was forcing her to the doorway. He saw the newcomer step
almost within arm's reach of the other. He saw him stop, an
expression of malevolent hatred upon his features. He saw the
great sword swing through the arc of a great circle, gathering
swift and terrific momentum from its own weight backed by the
brawn of the steel thews that guided it; he saw it pass through
The Chessmen of Mars |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sophist by Plato: word may have nothing to do with its derivation. He lived before the days
of Comparative Philology or of Comparative Mythology and Religion, which
would have opened a new world to him. He makes no allowance for the
element of chance either in language or thought; and perhaps there is no
greater defect in his system than the want of a sound theory of language.
He speaks as if thought, instead of being identical with language, was
wholly independent of it. It is not the actual growth of the mind, but the
imaginary growth of the Hegelian system, which is attractive to him.
Neither are we able to say why of the common forms of thought some are
rejected by him, while others have an undue prominence given to them. Some
of them, such as 'ground' and 'existence,' have hardly any basis either in
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