| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: patterns of stuffs, consulting her as to the bedroom furniture, going,
coming, and trotting about, for love's sake,--all this, I say, is a
spectacle in the highest degree calculated to rejoice the hearts of
honest people, especially tradespeople. And as nothing pleases folk
better than the marriage of a good-looking young fellow of seven-and-
twenty and a charming girl of nineteen that dances admirably well,
Godefroid in his perplexity over the corbeille asked Mme. de Nucingen
and Rastignac to breakfast with him and advise him on this all-
important point. He hit likewise on the happy idea of asking his
cousin d'Aiglemont and his wife to meet them, as well as Mme. de
Serizy. Women of the world are ready enough to join for once in an
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Euthydemus by Plato: censured philosophy; was he an orator who himself practises in the courts,
or an instructor of orators, who makes the speeches with which they do
battle?
CRITO: He was certainly not an orator, and I doubt whether he had ever
been into court; but they say that he knows the business, and is a clever
man, and composes wonderful speeches.
SOCRATES: Now I understand, Crito; he is one of an amphibious class, whom
I was on the point of mentioning--one of those whom Prodicus describes as
on the border-ground between philosophers and statesmen--they think that
they are the wisest of all men, and that they are generally esteemed the
wisest; nothing but the rivalry of the philosophers stands in their way;
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: by a slight transient sacrifice or a sudden effort, they do not
fail to make the attempt. Not that they are deeply interested in
his fate; for if, by chance, their exertions are unavailing, they
immediately forget the object of them, and return to their own
business; but a sort of tacit and almost involuntary agreement
has been passed between them, by which each one owes to the
others a temporary support which he may claim for himself in
turn. Extend to a people the remark here applied to a class, and
you will understand my meaning. A similar covenant exists in
fact between all the citizens of a democracy: they all feel
themselves subject to the same weakness and the same dangers; and
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