| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: the receiver of taxes, and Gatien came barefoot, like robbers, and
silently fastened up the two doors, agreeing to come again at five in
the morning to examine the state of the fastenings. Imagine their
astonishment and Gatien's delight when all four, candle in hand, and
with hardly any clothes on, came to look at the hairs, and found them
in perfect preservation on both doors.
"Is it the same wax?" asked Monsieur Gravier.
"Are they the same hairs?" asked Lousteau.
"Yes," replied Gatien.
"This quite alters the matter!" cried Lousteau. "You have been beating
the bush for a will-o'-the-wisp."
The Muse of the Department |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: treasure-house, seat of those merchant princes of Phoenicia who
brought to Greece the knowledge of letters and the art of working
in gold. Thebes is at our feet with the gloom of the terrible
legends of Greek tragedy still lingering about it, the birthplace
of Pindar, the nurse of Epaminondas and the Sacred Band.
And from out of the plain where 'Mars loved to dance,' rises the
Muses' haunt, Helicon, by whose silver streams Corinna and Hesiod
sang; while far away under the white aegis of those snow-capped
mountains lies Chaeronea and the Lion plain where with vain
chivalry the Greeks strove to check Macedon first and afterwards
Rome; Chaeronea, where in the Martinmas summer of Greek
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Rezanov by Gertrude Atherton: traders who refused to join the Company were to
be allowed to sell their property and depart in
peace.
Thus was formed the first of the Trusts in
America; and the United States never has had so
formidable a menace to her territorial greatness as
this Russian nobleman who paced that night the
wretched deck of the little ship he had bought from
one of her skippers. Perturbed in mind at his re-
cent failures and immediate prospects, he was no
less determined to take California from the Span-
Rezanov |
