| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: snow and frost have battered it and, as a rule, dismantled the
bastion at the entrance, I always find her at home, still full of
vigour, still carrying her family. This vehicular upbringing lasts
five or six months at least, without interruption. The celebrated
American carrier, the Opossum, who emancipates her offspring after
a few weeks' carting, cuts a poor figure beside the Lycosa.
What do the little ones eat, on the maternal spine? Nothing, so
far as I know. I do not see them grow larger. I find them, at the
tardy period of their emancipation, just as they were when they
left the bag.
During the bad season, the mother herself is extremely abstemious.
The Life of the Spider |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: because of the said insurance. You doubled your chances of success by
getting rid of the anxieties you were dragging about with you in the
shape of wife and children who might otherwise be left destitute at
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
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli: its text is still disputable.
Machiavelli concludes his letter to Vettori thus: "And as to this
little thing [his book], when it has been read it will be seen that
during the fifteen years I have given to the study of statecraft I
have neither slept nor idled; and men ought ever to desire to be
served by one who has reaped experience at the expense of others. And
of my loyalty none could doubt, because having always kept faith I
could not now learn how to break it; for he who has been faithful and
honest, as I have, cannot change his nature; and my poverty is a
witness to my honesty."
Before Machiavelli had got "The Prince" off his hands he commenced his
The Prince |
