| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: will be wholly indifferent to those moments of ennui which you
call melancholy, during which you are as lively as a rainy day,--a
wife who will be to you, in short, the excellent sister of charity
whom you are seeking. But as for loving, quivering at a word,
anticipating happiness, giving it, receiving it, experiencing all
the tempests of passion, cherishing the little weaknesses of a
beloved woman--my dear count, renounce it all! You have followed
the advice of your good angel about young women too closely; you
have avoided them so carefully that now you know nothing about
them. Madame de Mortsauf was right to place you high in life at
the start; otherwise all women would have been against you, and
The Lily of the Valley |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: them. The doubled-up sorceress flourished aloft her wooden spoon,
the puffy monster got off her stool and screeched, stepping from
one foot to the other, while the trembling of her head was
accelerated to positive vibration. Byrne was quite disconcerted by
their excited behaviour. . . Yes! The big, fierce Ingles went away
in the morning, after eating a piece of bread and drinking some
wine. And if the caballero wished to follow the same path nothing
could be easier - in the morning.
"You will give me somebody to show me the way?" said Byrne.
"Si, senor. A proper youth. The man the caballero saw going out."
"But he was knocking at the door," protested Byrne. "He only
Within the Tides |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: knowledge and mankind. He should have this great virtue; and in
spite of many shortcomings (for what man is there who liveth and
sinneth not?), naturalists as a class have it to a degree which
makes them stand out most honourably in the midst of a self-seeking
and mammonite generation, inclined to value everything by its money
price, its private utility. The spirit which gives freely, because
it knows that it has received freely; which communicates knowledge
without hope of reward, without jealousy and rivalry, to fellow-
students and to the world; which is content to delve and toil
comparatively unknown, that from its obscure and seemingly
worthless results others may derive pleasure, and even build up
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