| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Another Study of Woman by Honore de Balzac: "And God alone knows how dearly he paid for it," said Lord Dudley.
"Nowadays princes have lady-like wives, obliged to share their opera-
box with other ladies; royal favor could not raise them higher by a
hair's breadth; they glide unremarkable between the waters of the
citizen class and those of the nobility--not altogether noble nor
altogether /bourgeoises/," said the Marquise de Rochegude acridly.
"The press has fallen heir to the Woman," exclaimed Rastignac. "She no
longer has the quality of a spoken /feuilleton/--delightful calumnies
graced by elegant language. We read /feuilletons/ written in a dialect
which changes every three years, society papers about as mirthful as
an undertaker's mute, and as light as the lead of their type. French
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Hiero by Xenophon: shall be open to you to bide at home, and still attain your object.
Before you shall be gathered daily an assembly, a great company of
people willing to display whatever each may happen to possess of
wisdom, worth, or beauty;[10] and another throng of persons eager to
do you service. Present, regard them each and all as sworn allies; or
absent, know that each and all have one desire, to set eyes on you.
[10] Or, "to display their wares of wisdom, beauty, excellence."
The end will be, you shall not be loved alone, but passionately
adored, by human beings. You will not need to woo the fair but to
endure the enforcement of their loving suit.
You shall not know what fear is for yourself; you shall transfer it to
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: Finally, Swedenborg borrowed from Magianism, Brahmanism, Buddhism,
and Christian mysticism all the truth and divine beauty that those
four great religious books hold in common, and added to them a
doctrine, a basis of reasoning, that may be termed mathematical.
"Any man who plunges into these religious waters, of which the
sources are not all known, will find proofs that Zoroaster, Moses,
Buddha, Confucius, Jesus Christ, and Swedenborg had identical
principles and aimed at identical ends.
"The last of them all, Swedenborg, will perhaps be the Buddha of
the North. Obscure and diffuse as his writings are, we find in
them the elements of a magnificent conception of society. His
Louis Lambert |
