| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau by Honore de Balzac: dividends obtained by such compromises as fully counterbalanced by a
better employment of the time spent in coming and going, in making
proposals, or in listening to excuses for dishonesty.
"If the bankrupt is an honest man, and recovers himself, he will pay
you," Ragon would say. "If he is without means and simply unfortunate,
why torment him? If he is a scoundrel, you will never get anything.
Your known severity will make you seem uncompromising; it will be
impossible to negotiate with you; consequently you are the one who
will get paid as long as there is anything to pay with."
Cesar came to all appointments at the expected hour; but if he were
kept waiting, he left ten minutes later with an inflexibility which
Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Iliad by Homer: With this he flew at Alexandrus, caught him by the horsehair
plume of his helmet, and began dragging him towards the Achaeans.
The strap of the helmet that went under his chin was choking him,
and Menelaus would have dragged him off to his own great glory
had not Jove's daughter Venus been quick to mark and to break the
strap of oxhide, so that the empty helmet came away in his hand.
This he flung to his comrades among the Achaeans, and was again
springing upon Alexandrus to run him through with a spear, but
Venus snatched him up in a moment (as a god can do), hid him
under a cloud of darkness, and conveyed him to his own
bedchamber.
The Iliad |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Roads of Destiny by O. Henry: to her bosom. Well, sir, with all that Rindslosh scenery it was just
like a play. And the halberdier sits down at the table at the girl's
side, and I served the rest of the supper. And that was about all,
except that when they left he shed his hardware store and went with
'em."
I dislike to be side-tracked from an original proposition.
"But you haven't told me, Eighteen," said I, "how the cigar-case came
to be broken."
"Oh, that was last night," said Eighteen. "Sir Percival and the girl
drove up in a cream-coloured motor-car, and had dinner in the
Rindslosh. 'The same table, Billy,' I heard her say as they went up. I
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